Pococurante
by treena-ivy-carter
Summary: (Noun.) Cold, indifferent, nonchalant. Chris had been forced to be many things in his life: a witch, a whitelighter, an actor, a lord, but at heart, he was as cold as ice. Now, faced with himself and his decisions, he feels his icy facade begin to crack under the pressure and the countless parallels he sees. Revelation. Implied: abuse, slash, het, neglect, dramatic irony, etc.
1. Pococurante and Prologue

CE 2178

The Musings of the Prophet and Poet Anesia Baxter_ was republished to commemorate the 150 year anniversary of the Third World War. Anesia Baxter wrote while imprisoned in Lord Wyatt's camps. It is unknown if the journal was a complete works, a recorded premonition, or completely imaginary. It is unknown how much is false or how much is true, but it is held as a testament to the existence of Lord Wyatt and Lord Christopher, from the Battle of Forces, and the Third World War. While Anesia is not involved in this tale, it is unknown how much can be traced back to her imagination, her visions or what she experienced in life._

The following excerpt is from page twenty-eight, chapter two "Torn by Forces Beyond Us" of the original journal:

The difference between fire and ice does not solely lay in temperature, or at how they are the natural bane of the other, or in the innate creation or destruction of one another, but in the pococurantism or concupiscence that lays in their being. Just as the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference, the opposite of fire to be ice resides in the inherent emotion that lays within them. Fire burns, creates, and lives eternally. Fire is all consuming. Fire is deadly and life-giving. Fire is love, hate, good, evil. Fire is.

Ice is not.

The polarity of fire to ice resides in the fact that where fire is concupiscent, ice is pococurante.

Likewise, when the Lord Wyatt burned, Lord Christopher froze.

When millennia ago, when Rome and Mongolia and the Muslims reigned supreme, their oracles and seers and prophets all spoke of a burning light coming to destroy the world and raise it from perdition into salvation through the blood of the guilty and the innocent, many ignored what also would come. We always envision a great ball of fire, or a burning chariot, or a massive explosion - we never see the ice until we are blue and dead under it. Lord Wyatt was prophesied (1), his sister, Melinda (2), was always meant to be, but Lord Christopher? No one saw him coming. As one oracle (3) put it, he would be the gods' knife in the dark, meant to act swiftly without being foreseen. Strike and cut the ways of change. A sleek, cold blade. Could any comparison be more true?

To cut the strings of time and mold the very world and all eleven realms to his bidding?

How could such a beast be foreseen?

* * *

(1) The prophecies of a Twice-Blessed Childe have been confirmed to exist, but it is unknown whether or not Lord Wyatt was the alleged Twice-Blessed Childe; there have been speculations to the fact (_See _A Great Evil: Villains Foretold) that the three Halliwell siblings that played roles in the Third World War all fit the profile for said prophecy, but as of yet, nothing has been confirmed by reliable sources.

(2) Melinda Prudence Halliwell, (AKA Melinda the Wicked, differs from Melinda the Great (i.e. Melinda Warren)), born CE 2007 to Piper Halliwell, a Charmed witch, and Leo Wyatt, a whitelighter, died CE 2022 by burning, is confirmed to have been predicted for millenia by Melinda the Good, the Oracle at Delphi, etc. (_See _A Great Evil: Villains Foretold).

(3) "one oracle" - this alleged oracle was never confirmed and never recorded. It is unknown who Anesia Baxter was referring to, though speculations exist (_See _To Be or Not to Be: Which Historical Figures Really Lived?)

NOTES FROM EDITOR: The rest of this authorised text remains primarily unedited for history's sake. No further annotations are foreseen, no corrections outside of grammarian rules exist, and very few "musings" from Anesia Baxter continue. Small passages of the text are in foreign and/or magical languages, but have remained untranslated as per request of the Union of Magical Realms and Mortal Nations (i.e. UMRMN).


	2. Methane and Madness

**Author's Notes: takes place after "Legend of Sleepy Halliwell" (where the Headless Horsemen is summoned and the gang goes to Magic School; Phoebe goes on a random vision quest and finds out Chris is Piper's kid with surprisingly little emotional reaction from said aunt. No thought to "oh, hey, I hit on my nephew" or "holy shit, my neurotic whitelighter is my nephew" or even "we threw out my nephew!" or even "Perry? Who names their kid 'Perry' anyway?") and before the episode with Mata Hari. Everyone is generally unaware of the whole Chris is my nephew/kid thing - including Phoebe, because Creative Writer's License. Phoebe had the vision and knows Piper has two kids and she'll be having a baby, but let's ignore the underrated revelation that "Oh, hey, Chris looks a little like the little boy in my vision." **

**Also, I gave Chris one more power than he is meant to have, because (reasons I cannot reveal just yet), but remember that episode where the sisters were forcibly turned evil when Prue was married to that warlock (Zile)? And Piper's freezing power literally **_**froze**_** people? Yeah… if you remember that, you'll understand my reasoning for his extra power. As a recap, Chris' powers are (additional power), telekinesis, orbing, and minor photokinesis (in the comics). **

**Rated M for: Language (I don't censor myself)****, Canon Abuse, Unchanged (eh) Future, PTSD, War, Implied Abuse and Neglect, Implied and On Screen Het, Implied and possibly On Screen Slash, Implied and On Screen Sibling on Sibling Abuse, On Screen Murder and Gore, minor OCs, majorly OOC (or IC) Characters, etc. ... It was always rated M so don't act like I misled you. **

**Summary: Chris Revelation Fic.**

**Chapter 1: Methane and Madness**

_Pococurante:_

(Noun.)

Cold, indifferent, nonchalant.

* * *

"Hey, Piper, did you – holy shit!" he swore, as his eyes met the scene. The attic was flooded, the floor covered by a gelatinous, translucent cream-coloured liquid (liquefied methane he remembered disbelievingly), and petals of some flower (cherry blossoms, he thought idly, wildly, sick in his own internal panic) glided on the surface. Behind the overturned pedestal, a demon with slicked back black hair and a goatee in a black trenchcoat and black trousers, holding a struggling Piper against his chest, trapping her arms behind her back, with a knife held at her throat and his gloved hand over her mouth.

Chris stepped forwards, raising his hands to blow the bastard away like he couldn't do back…. Stop this monster before it happened all over again. Do what he couldn't do before as a stupid, weak child.

The demon smirked and said, sounding as much like death, decay and despair, feeling like the crawl of insects and the slide of oil, tasting like tears and copper nightmares, "You wouldn't want to do that, would you, little witchlighter? Fling me to either side, and bye, bye the witch's head!"

"Let her go," he said, his voice flat, without inflection or tone. He was aware of his fringe, of how it covered the intense green of his eyes – the eyes of death, Wyatt had called them. He was aware of the tight square of his shoulders, of the shoulder-width spread of his feet, of the slight bend in his knees for mobility, of the lethal power of his hands, of the muscles perpetuating his body. He felt the pain, the cry of the internal agony that screeched every day, pressing at his heart. He could hear the screaming imprinted in his mind. He could feel the cold, spreading from his chest to his brain and to each appendage he had. The icy patterns of his veins, filled with the eternal suffering of all, arching out from his diaphragm and the ribbed cage around the beaten vessel that some called a heart and others called a stone, and bleeding forth carvings of blades and steel, out from his love and wonder and his pain and hate and into each palm and foot, until he – like the pentagram – was strong.

He could feel that cold now, spreading like frost on a window, the crystals forming on the edges of trees, as white as her skin after she stopped bleeding, with the crimson dashed across her neck and chest and all over his hands as he prayed and begged for the healing glow that never came, for the heat he could not feel, for the warmth of love that never touched him evermore, not until Bianca and her ashy infinite fire came and swept him away, melting him and guiding him into an arctic ocean of power to stand alone again the tides of his brother's fire.

Her eyes, these pools of brown, so like Bianca's, his heart ached – they were filled with so much fear that he could feel the cold reaching out from every small step forward he took. Her eyes rolled from Chris' green to the door, to the floor, to the book hidden away and shielded from the water by the stone with Excalibur encased within. She stared at him and he immediately shifted his gaze to the empty playpen, Wyatt thankfully in Leo's custody Up There for the blessed moment.

He swallowed and stepped forwards boldly, and the demon stepped back mockingly. From beneath the witchlighter's feet, icy pathways sprung over the liquid and he raised his palms in the sign of surrender – or perhaps threateningly – as he spoke, every breath visible in the frost appearing everywhere, "You shouldn't be here, Zoras."

The demon smirked harder and Piper's eyes widened. He replied, "And you, _Christopher_ – where should you really be?"

"This is where I'm meant to be," he said back, stepping forwards once more, feeling the demon's reflecting pools harden into solid mirrors beneath him, "The question is: where are you meant to be?"

"You did this, Christopher," Zoras spoke, bringing the blade tighter to Piper's neck, so close that a single drop of blood fell down like a tear from an eye, "You are destroying everything we've ever worked for. You are altering the timeline in ways the Source does not desire."

Piper looked betrayed and she struggled minutely against Zoras' grip while trying to avoid the wicked curve of the athame.

"You sound like Wyatt," he replied, watching Piper's eyes widen even more, "As if I am evil like you and him and everyone else under his thumb."

"You've betrayed us?" Zoras said, eyes widening and his smirk growing in triumph, standing up straighter and towering over his captive, "You?"

"You're a bit behind the time, Zoras. I've been – " he flung his hand to the side and Zoras flew at the wall, like a puppet, "actively working against you and him and 'everything we've ever worked for' since I was sixteen fucking years old."

The demon hit the wall head on and slid down, but most demons (him included) weren't that fragile. He snarled from the floor and Piper quickly brought herself to her feet and went to blow him up when he threw out a fist. Chris shouted in warning and scrambled to intervene but –

Too late.

Like always.

He lunged forwards and grabbed a hold on his mother's collapsing body as Zoras flamed away. The athame stuck out of her chest, and blood soaked her shirt too quickly. The water and flowers remained and he moved reflexively, feeling the blood soak his hands as he ripped his shirt (could you be any slower, you idiot?), pulled out the knife (too messy, always too messy) and tried (too slow, always too slow) – too cold, always too cold – again and he felt himself dissolving into nonexistence as he tried to put pressure on it (too hard, too slow, too cold, do _something _you idiot). He breathed heavily and her eyes closed and he shrieked, feeling all sense and apathy disintegrate in his arms and he felt like he was fourteen again.

"Leo! Leo! Fucking Leo! Dad! Please! Wyatt! _Wyatt_!" his voice broke and he felt the sobs threaten him as he began to vanish and with it the future and his mother. His mother was dying and Dad wasn't coming, Wyatt wasn't coming, no one was coming, no one could hear him, no one could save them, and he felt the familiar _thud_ of his heart as he shrieked every whitelighter's name that he knew, but first, always first, he had to, he must, begging the heavens, "Leo! Please, Leo! Your wife is dying and I can't save her! Please, fucking hell, _Wyatt! Dad! Please! Dad! Daddy! Don't leave me here all alone again! For the love of God and all that is holy, PLEASE! Mom! Mom is dying! _Wyatt! Please! Leo, Leo, Gideon, Zulu, Zola, Megan, Henry, Prudence, Leo, Dad, please, why won't you come?! _Wyatt! Dad! Now!_"

He held her closer, feeling the blood soak his shirt and his hands and he felt himself stop feeling – his face now completely translucent and quickly, too quickly crossing the line of being into never existing, and wondered briefly as the cold gave way to horrible heat if that was the key to saving Wyatt when the orbs formed and the sound rang and there was Leo and _thank God _and he saw the light and the heat and the warmth overtake him and he was cold once more as he reappeared in full force and she was healed and she was alive and _thank God and Wyatt and the Source and everything good in this world!_

He blinked, the tears suddenly entirely too real and too hot on his face and he was completely aware of the fact that he was kneeling on frozen methane and he was completely blood-stained and he was crying and he – his mother was alive! He was alive!

And the future was completely screwed, because his mother and his father were both staring at him, so incomprehensible, entirely too young and completely unprepared for any piece of the truth. The emotions were like waves and wind and rocks and earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes – all at the same time – with all the complexity and pain of himself coming back and completely helpless to locking them back up again.

"Chris?" she said, too concerned and too unfamiliar and too pitying and too suspicious _all at the same time_ and it was unreal at how fucking alive she sounded and pathetic it must be to feel even more like crying because he couldn't tell her why he was suddenly sobbing about how _she was alive_ and how she _wasn't_ and he _wasn't real anymore _and he really wanted to tell her everything and make her love him again and he wanted Wyatt to be sane and for his father to give a shit and for everything to be okay again and he was mentally rambling and he was _still _crying, if anyone could believe that, and –

"Chris?" she repeated, leaning forwards and laying a hand on his – too cold, always too fucking cold – arm, "Are you okay? Who was that?"

He leaned forwards too, prostrating himself completely on the ice, the all too real image of his mother – _his _mother – and her dead brown eyes clouding over, and her body feeling like it was the same temperature as his own. He could see the blood on her neck and her chest and her short hair – long since cut into a bob – surrounding her head in a dark halo. He could still see her chest and it wasn't moving and her heart was silent and she wasn't breathing and he was all alone. He moaned loudly, and his breath hitched and he sobbed, and then he simply orbed away, bursting into thousands of little lights and disappearing from their eyes.

Piper and Leo looked at each other.

"Piper? What happened?"

"I – ," she paused, collecting herself, "I don't really know. I've never seen him so upset before."

"Piper, you almost died. If I had been a second later, even a second, you'd be dead!" Leo said, force so intense and present that she turned to look at him in surprise. His eyes were bright and worried and filled with so much dismay and despair that she blinked at him, feeling the shock and the fear swirling within her dissolve (she'd survived worse, of course) because he could be concerned for her.

She decided to leave the topic and said, "He – he _knew _the demon. They talked. I think the demon was from the future."

"I – " he sighed, dropping the topic, "Why?"

She continued, "They talked about Wyatt – Chris said he wasn't like him – and the Source, but… The demon said Chris had betrayed him and 'everything they worked for' and Chris said he'd been working against them, whoever 'they' are, for years. Oh, Leo, I'm so confused. None of this makes any sense!"

"I'll go gather the sisters," Leo told her, though the way he gripped her seemed to suggest he did not feel comfortable leaving her side again, and he reluctantly let go to do just that.

"Jason and I were sleeping, so this had better be good!" Phoebe said as she materialised in lingerie, a bathrobe and a pair of slippers. Her eyes widened as she took into account the frozen floor and frosted flowers and the blood-stained floor, and she declared, "This is good. Well, bad. I mean, yes, this is a good reason to get me up at four a.m. Excuse me, I'm tired."

Paige and Leo materialised seconds later and Paige immediately said, "Well, this looks it'll be hard to clean up."

Leo began to explain, "Piper was attacked," he paused briefly, staring at his hands with a peculiar expression, "I barely got here in time. If I had been any later, even just a second…"

The other sisters looked at each other and Phoebe spoke, "Piper nearly died? Where was Chris in all this?"

"Chris was here," Piper said, sitting on a chair, "I was looking up some demons in the book – which is over there," she made a gesture to the rock, "when this demon – Zora or something, I think his name was – flamed in behind me, trapped my arms, covered my mouth and conjured an athame. That second, Chris walked in and… Long story short? Chris and the demon knew each other and Chris attacked him. The demon knifed me and Chris had a flip attack."

"A flip attack?" Paige said, "What do you mean?"

"He was," Piper drifted off, the memories of the knife and the pain and the fear and the bitter taste of betrayal when she heard that Chris had been in contact with the Source – in the future? – "shaken. Rattled. Upset. I mean upset like bursting into tears and completely breaking down. He was screaming for whitelighters, said a lot of names I didn't know, and Leo showed up, healed me and Chris was like – he was like broken, you know?"

"They knew each other?" Phoebe said, "How? What do you mean?"

Piper shrugged, "Chris walked in and he went to attack him, and the demon threatened me. Then Chris' voice got all quiet and flat and he said something about letting me go, and the demon laughed at him and Chris said that he – the demon – shouldn't be here, and the demon said that Chris shouldn't be here, and then the demon said something about Chris working for the Source and Chris said he betrayed them a long time ago – it was confusing and didn't seem to make any sense."

"Maybe Chris could clarify," Paige said, "He should be here, anyhow. You were attacked, Piper, and he used to work for the Source? That makes him a demon, or at least evil. Chris? Chris?! Chris! Get down here, now!"

Leo said quietly, "I don't think he's coming, Paige. He seemed…"

"Broken," Piper whispered, "When I was," she paused slightly, "dying, he started to have a panic attack or something. He screamed for three people a lot – Leo, Wyatt, and," she trailed off, unsure if she should say it, if she realty heard him say it.

"His father," Leo completed.

"But isn't Wyatt supposed to be evil in the future?" Paige asked, confused.

"Maybe he was having a flashback?" Phoebe suggested and they all looked at her in confusion, "When I was taking psychology, we learnt about that. A traumatic event occurs in someone with anxiety problems or PTSD or a slew of other disorders and that event triggers a memory of another traumatic event and it sounds like that was happening. He sees a demon from the future attacking Piper, and say, hypothetically, this demon also attacked someone that Chris loves – "

"His mother," Piper supplied, "I think he was shouting about her when he was calling for Leo, and the others."

Phoebe nodded, and continued, "Say, his mother was attacked by this demon when Chris was young, and Chris saw it and it traumatised him, and then years later – for him – he sees the same demon attempt to kill Piper and he is suddenly seeing his mother dying again. A flashback. That's why he'd suddenly start shouting for other whitelighters rather than Leo – his father, because he's a witchlighter, and Wyatt, because Wyatt, if he did turn, probably didn't do it until he was an established witchlighter. And all those other whitelighters."

"Well," Leo said, "I'm going to go get him."

"Why?" Piper asked.

"Because," Leo frowned, "even if he was traumatised, according to Piper and this demon, Chris worked for the Source in the future. That makes him a threat to Wyatt, and officially on a mission from evil."

"But the demon said Chris betrayed them – the Source, W-Wyatt, and all the rest of the evil of the future," Piper protested, stumbling briefly over her son's name, still unprepared to declare her son to be evil in the future.

"That doesn't matter," Leo said, "Prepare the crystals. Even if he's turned back from evil, that puts everything about him into question – his powers, his heritage, everything he's told us."

With that, he dissolved into the orbs and disappeared.

The sisters sighed and Paige rolled her eyes as she recited the Vanishing Spell on the methane on the floor. At their looks she said self-consciously, "What? We'd never be able to get to the Book of Shadows or stop the forces of evil with this mess in the way! It's _ice_."

Chapter End.

**So... What now? Read and Review. Or don't. Do whatever.**

**July 24: Edit. The demon's name was meant to be Zoras, not Foras. My apologies for the confusion. **


	3. Ensconcement and Equivocation

**Author's Notes: takes place after "Legend of Sleepy Halliwell" and before the episode with Mata Hari (I think that's where Jason and Phoebe break up). Everyone is generally unaware of the whole Chris is my nephew/kid thing - including Phoebe. I divert from canon after "Legend of Sleepy Halliwell" and go my own way. ****Also, I gave Chris one more power than he is meant to have, because (reasons I cannot reveal just yet), but remember that episode where the sisters were forcibly turned evil when Prue was married to that warlock (Zile)? And Piper's freezing power literally **_**froze**_** people? Yeah… if you remember that, you'll understand my reasoning for his extra power. As a recap, Chris' powers are (additional power), telekinesis, orbing, and minor photokinesis (in the comics).**

**Summary: Chris Revelation Fic.**

**Disclaimer: No rights to _Charmed_.**

**Chapter 2: Ensconcement and Equivocation**

_Cold_

(Adjective).

Of or at a low body temperature; lacking affection or warmth; unemotional

* * *

Chris was hiding. He could admit it. He was sitting in the Underworld, in a furnished cavern, masquerading as a warlock he had previously murdered and assumed the identity of before rising to the Inner Warlock Council. This warlock – Krynik – had an apartment somewhere, but he didn't feel like an apartment, he wanted cold, and the caverns that felt so similar to the world he had come from, not the completely strange San Francisco "above." It was so different up there – all bright, with less smog, and humongous buildings, and annoying little people with their stupid, little, first world problems. _Oh, your steak was burnt? I'm sorry, before I came through that portal, when we _had_ food it was stolen, out of a can, or rotten beyond belief. My heart _bleeds_ for you. _

The Underworld never changes, though. Thousands of channels, thousands of winding caves, candles, oils, disgusting figures he all knew by name and all who knew him, or felt the déjà vu of 'This man is meant and not meant to be here. Who is this man? I must know him.' Sure, some of them were unfamiliar because they were dead in his time, but most of them weren't. He liked the familiar whoosh of wind rushing through with the disgusting rotten-eggs smell of sulphur drifting through the air. He liked the layers and the volcanic rock and the brimstone and the ice. He liked the crystals and the disfigured demons who walked free, like they did at the Resistance Headquarters and throughout Wyatt's kingdom.

Disgusting, right? He thought to himself. _Missing _the horrific mess Wyatt had made of the world? _Preferring _the familiar sounds of silence to the loud, civilisation of life before his birth and before Wyatt's rise to power? _Enjoying _the Underworld, Hell itself, because he couldn't stand the world being happy?

Sometimes, he felt just as bad as Wyatt. He wasn't made for _this _world, for the peaceful, bustling "woe is me" sarcasm of humans and their ignorance. He wasn't made to be a civilian, who sat there and whinged about nothing. He was meant to fight and starve – that was all he knew how to do. He was meant to lead his pitiful army and fight alongside monsters and warlocks and witches and demons and the last of the whitelighters against other monsters and warlocks and witches and demons and the last of the whitelighters. That was all he knew how to do. The sisters were so young and so stupid and "does this make my ass look big?" and "Jason" this and "Richard" that and the bloody "Fireman" – he despised that goddamned fireman – and the fucking "I want to be normal!"

You aren't normal.

Suck it up.

These sisters couldn't possibly survive his world.

In fact, they didn't.

He was throwing a pity party. He knew it. He didn't care.

He didn't care at all about how he was literally frosting over, at how his hair was literally forming crystals, and he most certainly didn't care about the fact that the entire table and the cavern around him had a thick layer of ice. He didn't care about the fact his skin was bleached white or the fact he could see his breath or the fact his sclera had reddened or his lips had blued. He idly flicked his fingers and little lights danced on the ceiling.

What was he? _Five_?

That's what Wyatt would ask if he could see him. "Pardon me, but are you five, brother? Honestly, did you ever stop using these as night lights? You're pathetic." He could just hear him talk in that _stupid _voice of his.

The ice cracked and his eye twitched.

He didn't care though.

He was too fucking cold to care.

…

It was his fourteenth birthday. Dad wasn't going to come, but did he ever? According to his mother, Dad hadn't even been there when he was born, let alone for his fourteenth birthday. Wyatt was out getting the ("Store-bought?" Piper said derisively, "What chef buys _store-bought _cake?) cake with Phoebe, and Paige was rounding up the other children (all _seven _of them) and keeping little ten year old Melinda calm (she was hovering – she was so excited). Coop was off flitting about (he was _also _hovering) and Henry was tired and bouncing four-year old Pamela on his hip as Junior zoomed about. The twins were acting like twits and P.J. was plotting pranks. Parker was attempting to follow Junior but that didn't seem to be working out.

Piper and he were making his _real _cake like they always did. The store bought cake was so Phoebe could act like she wasn't a half-assed aunt (she was, she really was – she was only there for her biological children, not her sister's children), and because Wyatt liked the store-bought icing better than homemade, because he was clearly around too many demon blasts as a child. If anyone could believe it, Junior _agreed _with Wyatt about the icing. Now, he was clearly dropped on his head because he had no excuse.

It was just them.

A half-retired witch and a baby witchlighter – they were sitting ducks. When the Anti-Orb wards raised and when the warlock charms too effect, they were practically normal mortals.

Weak.

Pitiful.

…

"Chris?"

He turned slightly at his voice, "What the fuck, Leo?"

His father seemed so out of this world, what with his bright button down and his white-wash jeans. He was tan and blond and blue eyed – he was clearly not a demon that it was so ridiculous that he could just waltz on in here without being shot or at least a little singed. He looked down slightly before blue met green, "Pretty," he nodded, gesturing at the ice, "Much nicer down here than at the manor with the sisters. Piper's fine, if you wanted to know."

Chris blinked slowly, before pulling a classic bitch face, as he hushed his voice, "Don't say that name. In fact, don't say my name. Hell, don't say _your _name. Are you trying to get us both shot down here? I am not putting two months of careful espionage on the line for your sorry ass and innate stupidity."

"Are you experienced at that?" he asked idly, "Espionage?"

Chris rolled his eyes and looked at the icicles on the ceiling as he answered, "Why do you care?"

"Piper said you knew the demon that attacked her."

"Yeah, and? If you haven't noticed, I know a lot of demons," Chris nodded, waving a hand around the cavernous walls, "That's sort of my thing. You can heal and do the Elder thing where you're all holier-than-thou and high and mighty, where you can try and tell me what to do, and I do the bitchy, neurotic whitelighter thing and ignore you as I attempt to save your son and the world the only way I know how."

"Is Wyatt really evil in the future?" Leo asked, completely ignoring Chris.

Chris shrugged, "Try the Source of All Evil, Leo. I'm not saying he's a warlock or that he fell in love with a demon – I'm saying that he literally orbed down here, made connections and rose to power. The whole shebang. Then he wiped out the Cleaners, caused an all-out civil war on the side of Good and the side of Evil. He single-handedly tore the world apart. He turned brother against brother, sister against sister, witch against witch, demon against demon – "

"And where do you fit in?" Leo asked, cocking his head.

He turned to look Leo in the eye, stepping closer slightly, "Future consequences."

Leo sighed and switched directions, "When you called for me, when Piper was dying, you started screaming for your father. And for Wyatt. I – we – need to know why. And we need to know why and how you knew that demon."

"No, you don't," Chris replied.

"We do," Leo declared, daring the young man further by stepping forwards, "because if we don't know, we will stand in the way of your mission and refuse to work until you tell us or until your future happens. How is that for a future consequence?"

Chris' brow furrowed and he frowned, "I called for my father because I forgot."

"Forgot what?"

Chris shrugged, "I don't have to tell you."

Leo shrugged back and punched Chris square in the face.

…

He felt the cold wash over his feet and that was the last cold he ever felt. He remembered looking down at the slimy feel of the excess and remembered calling, "Mom?"

"Chris," she gasped, "Run!"

He spun around, arms raised and there he was, holding her close, arms trapped behind her and athame at her neck, "Ah, ah, ah, witchlighter, you wouldn't want the old witch to lose her head, would you?"

"Let her go," he remembered saying, impossibly young, voice shaking and so obviously terrified.

"Now why would I do that?" he asked back, voice sounding as oily as the liquid methane that danced around his feet, and the cherry blossoms that floated along, like whispers of pain. Chris couldn't say anything else, and Zoras laughed. His mother urged him to run with her eyes, his hand clasped over her mouth, and she was so obviously scared. He'd never seen his mother so scared before, not in all his fourteen years. He shook his head and his heart seemed so heavy in his chest

He raised the blade and Chris threw his hand to the side, in a wide, unexperienced arc, but Zoras was prepared, with another athame slicing his mother's neck, and another one conjured out of the black dust of demonic magic that slid through his mother's spine and through her abdomen. He dropped his hold and flamed away, and she collapsed like a wooden puppet with her strings cut. He lunged forwards and started to scream every name he knew, calling on every whitelighter he knew, calling for the recompense of favours, demanding they repay their debts to his mother and how she had saved their sorry asses and now they had to save hers.

But first, he called for Leo. Always.

Second, he called for Wyatt. Always.

…

He awoke in the crystal cage in a chair. They tied back his hands and bagged them, so he couldn't easily move a crystal out of the way and escape. They stood around him, Leo behind Piper, Paige in the centre with the book, and Phoebe standing to Paige's left (Chris' right) looking helpless and about to pass out.

Chris sighed and felt like calling for Wyatt, even though his Wyatt was evil, insane and all-around trigger-happy. In fact, he feel like he was back in Wyatt's court, being forced to play a part and ignore himself while still loving the demons that wore his loved ones' faces. He could still envision Melinda standing at Wyatt's side, laughing as an innocent was tortured publically for that day's entertainment. He could still see Parker knifing Junior with the athame. He could still feel P.J. shrieking as Kat bled her. He could still smell Tammy's tears when she heard what her twin had done. He could still hear Prue reciting the spell that would make herself into a living bomb and he could still see her walking into Washington, D.C. on Wyatt's orders and blowing herself and a fourth of the east coast off of the face of the Earth to send a message.

He could still feel the Witch Hunters and their bonds around his wrists, even after he identified himself as one of Wyatt's brood and how they should not touch him.

He could still smell the sulphur in the air.

He could taste the tears of billions.

He could hear Bianca singing.

He could see the brand on his back, the string of numbers that codified himself as witchlighter. He could see the rope burns and the scars of their treatment. He could see Wyatt staring at him and asking him again if innocents were worth saving, long after he killed them all publically for attacking his brother and burning his sister at the stake on national television.

Why couldn't they leave him alone? Why couldn't they let him save Wyatt from himself? Why couldn't they let him save them?

Paige stepped forwards and said, "Chris, we're going to ask you a few questions. If you comply and answer honestly, we won't use Phoebe's spell to invade your memories. If you don't comply, we will dose you with a truth serum, invade your memories and possibly vanquish you. If you lie, we will know. If you evade the question, we will know. Don't try anything. Do you understand?"

He sighed again, but nodded, staring at the truth rod that Leo probably took from Up There that resided in Paige's hands.

"Did you know the demon who attacked Piper today?"

"Yes."

"Who is he?"

"His name is Zoras. He's an upper level, methane-based demon from the seventh plane of existence. He is a treasured member of Wyatt's Court."

Piper twitched but didn't comment. Paige gave her a look but continued questioning, "How did you know him?"

"He killed my mother. I hunted him for six months until I met him as one of Wyatt's Court."

"What is Wyatt's Court?"

Chris frowned, but answered painstakingly slowly, "When Wyatt became the Source of All Evil – there's your proof, by the way – he created a Court of several magickal beings and his family. He had representatives from most of the creatures in existence and his actions, when it was revealed he was the Source, threw the world into chaos and caused world war in all of magic. Witch turned against witch, coven against coven, leprechaun against leprechaun, fae against fae, demon against demon."

"Were you a member?"

"Initially, yes."

"Are you still a member?"

"Technically."

"What does that mean?"

"You don't lose your member status," Chris said, mouth twisting, "You die. There's a difference. I betrayed him. If I were to ever return to my future, I would be executed unless I renounced my rebellion and begged for forgiveness."

"Would you do that?" Phoebe asked curiously, "If you don't find what turns Wyatt evil. Would you try and double-cross us?"

"No," Chris replied, "I will not live in such a world. Besides, it would never work. Wyatt knows I will never come back to him willingly. If I don't succeed in finding what turns Wyatt evil, I will kill him."

Piper went to raise her hands in order to blow him up but Leo held her back. He asked, "Why is that? Why would you kill Wyatt?"

"If I can't save him, it is my duty to kill him in order to save the world."

"Why did you come to the past?" Phoebe asked, "Were you sent?"

"I sent myself," Chris replied, "I was the only one they could trust to do the job correctly."

"Correctly?" Piper asked then, "What does that mean? And who's 'they'?"

"It means that I am willing to do whatever I must to save the world. I am willing to do anything and everything necessary to save the world and Wyatt. Most of the other candidates for this so-called mission would kill Wyatt straight off. I argued that I wouldn't. Not until it was entirely necessary. 'They' would mean the Resistance that stands against Wyatt's Court."

"And why aren't you willing to kill Wyatt?" Phoebe asked, leaning in slightly.

"I love him," Chris replied immediately, "You do whatever you have to in order to save the people you love."

They all collectively blinked and Leo swallowed roughly. Chris squinted at them, confused at the sudden pause in questioning. Piper finally asked, "Did he love you back?"

He blinked at them, even more confused, "If he was capable of love, then yes. He did love me. If he wasn't capable of love, then I was just his favourite toy. After all," he trailed off briefly, "I never broke, did I? Not like the others."

They all exchanged more stares and he started to feel like he was in some B-rated movie. Piper shrugged at him and Leo eventually asked, "When Piper was attacked, you called for me, but you called for your father as well. Why?"

Chris frowned but reminded himself that they would not hesitate to delve into his memories and ruin everything, "I forgot."

"You forgot what?" Phoebe asked, "You forgot you were in the past?"

"He never comes," Chris replied softly, "Never. No matter how much I scream. No matter what I beg. No matter if my mother – the love of his life – is dying in my arms, he won't come. Why? Because I don't matter. The innocents matter. The world matters. What am I compared to the world? So she died. I was stuck there for hours, with her body in my arms, trapped in that fucking house with her blood on my hands and… I screamed and screamed. No one came. She died and he came to the funeral and I…" he smiled, "I told Wyatt that Dad thought the innocents mattered more than Mom, and Wyatt told me that he knew and that it was despicable. I told him I was going to hunt down that demon and he said that he had a better plan. I only had to be patient," he shrugged, "Six months later, he invited me and his family into King Arthur's new court and took the world."

"Why did Zoras attack me?" Piper asked.

"I don't know."

…

When the spells ended, Wyatt immediately orbed in and saw him drenched in their mother's blood. Chris' tears had long since dried and he was simply rocking back and forth, hugging the body close to his chest. Wyatt knelt in front of him and slowly pulling his fingers from her shirt and made him drop her and push her aside. He gathered him up in his arms and orbed them away. He didn't know where. Just away. Chris, he realised later, had started to cry, faced with the horrible relief that Wyatt was okay and that he was safe and he was alive even though his mother was dead.

After he was sobbed out, he started to tell Wyatt about how he had called and called but no one came and then Mom was dead and he was all alone for so long. Wyatt told him he'd been trapped for fourteen hours. He was warded and shielded and completely hidden from them all, but Wyatt said that there had been a thirty second gap in between where the wards took a hold and when Piper died where Leo could have – if he had been willing – orbed in and saved her. That's when Chris said he wanted to kill Leo and hunt down the monster that killed their mother.

Wyatt said simply, "If Dad hadn't been so caught up in saving everyone else, he could have saved you both."

"Then kill everyone else," Chris had cried, "Kill them all! Kill the demons, kill the evil, kill the corruption, kill the Elders, kill everyone and anything! No one deserves to lose their mother! Nobody!" Years later, Chris would look back on that conversation and wonder if that was when Wyatt finally decided to make his twisted dreams a reality.

Wyatt held him close and said, "I know, Chris, I know."

"There's no such thing as good or evil, Wy," Chris told him, sobbing once more, "There are no sides. There are only factions that think they know best. There's no good in this world, Wy, because if there was – if there was even a smidgen, Mom would be alive and she'd be here, but she isn't."

Wyatt nodded, holding him closer, pressing his head into his shoulder.

Chris continued, "There's no heaven, Wy, there aren't angels, and there's no hell, either. It's all a lie. The Elders and the whitelighters – those are only other species. There is only here and now and it certainly is worse than the both of them. I can't take it, Wy, I can't stand living like this, I can't stand the fighting! I can't stand being a witch, I can't stand being a whitelighter, I can't just keep on fighting and fighting and knowing that no matter what I do, no matter what we kill, everyone is going to lose their mothers in the end. It's all for nothing. Grams, Gramma Halliwell, Auntie Prue, Mom – they all died and for _what_?!

"There's no good in this world, Wy, and if there isn't any good, there isn't any evil, either. It's all just disgusting shades of grey," he had shouted, sobbing, snot and tears falling down his face and he was just as bad as a mortal.

Chapter End.

**If you need a little help, 'Gramma Halliwell' would be the Charmed Ones' mother. Patty? I couldn't just have two Grams, it would be too weird. **


	4. Comedy and Connections

**Author Notes: Please take into account, I binge wrote the first 10,000 words of this story, and it is currently Who-Knows A.M. where I am, so... If you see anything disturbingly wrong grammar or fact wise, I will not be offended if you pointed it out. This chapter is a bit all over the place, but go with it. Trust me, that's just how I write.**

**Warnings: Implied/Not-Implied Slash, Implied/Obvious Het. Violence, Patricide, Warfare, Misuse of Canonical Facts, etc. **

**Chapter 3: Comedy and Conceptions**

_Indifferent_

(Adjective.)

Not interested in or concerned about something; neither good nor bad.

* * *

Phoebe brought him tea after he was out of the cage. He stared at it curiously a minute before accepting it from her hand. She sat down next to him on the couch.

"Wyatt hated tea," he said after a moment of hesitation, as if he was afraid to say anything, "He decreed it illegal."

"He made tea illegal?" she said after a pause, "Tea?"

"He also thought store bought cake was better than Piper's homemade," Chris confided, he hushed his voice and whispered conspiratorially, "He was weird. I think it was all the potion fumes. He also hated the Smurfs. Now that I think about it that was probably an early sign of his future goals"

She blinked at him for a moment of disbelief before breaking out into laughter. He stared at her in confusion for half a second before joining in. At that moment, Paige walked in and stood in confusion before she called worriedly, "Piper? Leo?"

"Yeah?" Piper called back, walking in and Leo followed obediently, like the whipped puppy he was at heart. Paige gestured to the scene of their neurotic whitelighter and the advice columnist sharing an apparent nervous breakdown. It was probably because Phoebe was an empath.

Minutes beforehand, Piper and Leo were having a quiet but heated conversation where Leo was freaking out over Wyatt apparently falling in love with a man, because Leo was from the nineteen twenties and clearly an irrational fuck – or so Piper had christened him – because this was the twenty first century and San Francisco, and clearly not a century ago. What's next? He's going to suggest she wear an apron and make him a sandwich? (Never mind the fact that her sandwiches are in fact amazing and she did wear an apron when she worked as a chef). Honestly, that was twenty years in the future, and besides did it really matter? His son grew up to be an evil overlord and he is having a panic attack over the fact his son liked cock? "Priorities!" she had whisper-shouted at him, "Do you not have priorities?!"

Leo stopped in the doorway behind him and tapped Piper's shoulder. He made a gesture as if that was to prove his point, and she smacked him on the arm. Paige pulled her social-worker smile and said, "So? What's the joke?"

Phoebe was still laughing but Chris immediately wiped his face of all emotion. He shook his head and said, so calmly and rationally, "I have no idea and I had nothing to do with it."

Phoebe started snorting and Chris gave her a bitch-face and she laughed even harder as if that was possible. Phoebe eventually composed herself to gasp out, "Wyatt…tea…smurfs!"

Chris shrugged, stood and calmly walked out of the room.

…

A few days passed until they cornered him again and he felt his barriers chip away. This time, it was Paige and it was in the attic. They were looking up something in the Book of Shadows – well, _he _was looking up something and he had suspicions that she was stalking him. He didn't want to think that she was attracted to him, especially because A., she's his aunt, even if she is twenty years younger than he is used to, and even though she doesn't know that, and B., she was still with Richard for whatever reason. Chris couldn't see it. Henry looked vaguely like Richard, he guessed, when he gave it any thought. They were both average looking guys, though Richard had that weird hair and face and eyebrows, and Henry probably ranked higher on the looks scale by at least two rungs. Now that he thought about it, Henry had pretty weird eyebrows, too.

And now he was thinking about eyebrows. What could he say? Aunt Paige brought out the worst in him. Unlike Aunt Phoebe who was too focused on being Super Mom and Mom, who was constantly frazzled by her children and her nieces (and nephew, poor Junior), Paige had remained a free spirited, lovable aunt. She could always break his focus and make him relax, even after she died and was demoted to just whitelighter by sheer force of will.

Plus, the orange hair was not helping him take her seriously.

Before he could bite his tongue, he spoke, "Why are you still with Richard?"

She blinked, pursed her lips and gave her signature Who-Me? look. It was honestly adorable on that young face. It wasn't nearly as effective when she was in her fifties. She shrugged, "Am I not in the future?"

"Future consequences," he said quickly.

She frowned, "You can't just say that and leave me hanging. Give me something. Throw me a bone. Anything, something. Come on, you can tell me. I'll be your best friend." The last line was said with that childish, whiny tone that she always used when she was bargaining for the last cookie or ribbing into him or begging to know who he had a crush on.

He gave her a look, his defences melted, and there goes the future, "If it helps, they look sort of similar. Your husband and Richard."

"Really?" she gushed before attempting to compose herself, "I mean, really? That's interesting. I can work with that. That's okay. I'm happy with that. Hey, do you think I had kids with him?"

_God, fuck, shit_ "You have three," and Wyatt would totally laugh at him at how quickly he'd just jeopardised everything by just losing himself in the fact that _this is Auntie Paige, she loves me, and I love her and I want to make her happy and don't die Paige, don't leave me all alone_. _Don't let Wyatt ruin the world. Fix everything like you always do._

"Three?" she said, and that smile. _godfuckshitdamnsonovabitchgahhh!_

"You all have three. You and Phoebe and Piper."

"Really?" and when she went to open her mouth again with her eyes so playfully wide and _familiar_ he simply had to raise a finger and press it to her lips, and he shushed her.

She blinked twice, like a doll, and there was his escape.

"Thanks, Paige," he said, closed the book and he orbed away, before he could tell her his social security number or anything else that could possibly dismantle the future as he knows it!

She blinked again and touched her lips in confusion. She turned and walked down and stage-whispered on the staircase, "Did you get that?"

Conspiratorially, the gremlin jumped on the tape recorder and zoomed off. She, likewise, rushed off to tell the sisters to key to getting information from Chris was to corner him. Just as she suspected! Eureka!

… And she should probably break up with Richard, she thought later. Apparently, he isn't going to last.

…

Meanwhile, Leo was having a quiet but heated argument with Piper. Again. Wyatt was sleeping in his crib and they were whisper-shouting in the nursery.

"You haven't held your son in days, Leo," she had said when she laid the sleeping baby down. When he didn't reply immediately, she turned to glare at him, "This wouldn't happen to be about his adult life and private relationships twenty years from now, would it?"

"Is it my fault?" he said finally, sitting in the rocking chair heavily, putting his head in his heads, "Is it because I'm not around as often as I should be?"

In reply, she smacked him upside the head.

…

He was back in the Underworld, cajoling with a few warlocks that had heard of a Zoras and possibly knew where his headquarters was. Then one said, "I heard you had a meeting with a whitelighter, Krynik."

Chris raised a brow sceptically, silently cursing Leo Wyatt, "And I think you've had a bit too much to drink. Me? Hanging out with a whitelighter? You're insane or drunk, clearly."

"Yeah," one of the other ones said (this one was called Deilas, not that it mattered to Chris), "We don't hang out with whitelighters, Kirjak. Next you'll be saying you believe the rumours about that Elder trying to deal with demons."

"An Elder dealing with demons," Chris asked curiously, "I haven't heard that one before."

Kirjak and the other warlocks gave him looks and the one called Baros said, "I heard from Seer Kyra that an Elder had been making deals with demons and asking for ways to destroy a great power."

"A great power?" he asked, "Such as?"

Kirjak answered him, "According to Salvor the Witch Slayer, he was looking for a way to exterminate some witch with demon blood."

"I heard it was a witch with the blood of gods," Deilas interrupted.

Baros shook his head, "No, no, no, it was a half-witch, half-whitelighter child, Kyra said."

The twiggy, quiet one (Zamor?) protested, "A half-witch half-whitelighter? There's no such thing! That's like suggesting the next Source will be a lowly warlock – like that would happen. Elders have strict rules on that too – the little whitelighters can't procreate with the charges. Common company policy – CEOs don't allow managers to fuck the interns."

"Do you live under a rock?" Baros asked him, smacking him across the face, "One of the Charmed Ones gave birth to a half-witch, half-whitelighter."

"A Charmed One?" Deilas gasped, "That Elder would be insane to even think about going after one of them."

"I heard that the Charmed Ones never follow the Elders' rules," Zamor interjected, attempting to redeem himself.

Chris simply stirred his drink, contemplating what he'd discovered. Zoras? What did that matter when Wyatt's life was at stake?

…

A week and a half had passed since the attack and Chris' questioning, when Chris orbed into the kitchen holding his intestines in by sheer force of will. Piper was cooking dinner and all of a sudden, there was a neurotic whitelighter collapsing on the floor, screaming, "Demons!"

In the same breath she screamed, "Leo!" as she scrambled to the emergency potion stores in the cupboards. She threw the pantry doors open and as the demons shimmered in, energy balls in hand, she turned and blew one up and tossed a potion at the other. Meanwhile, Leo orbed his ass down, taking his sweet time as Chris shuddered on the floor. He knelt down at Chris' side and his hands glowed and all was well.

Chris got himself up, leaned against the counter, looked from Leo to Piper and said straight out, "You two should have sex."

Piper blinked twice and Leo flushed, saying, "Now, why should – "

"You didn't think Wyatt was your only kid, did you?" Chris asked derisively, "Go on a date or two, get the chemistry going and get into bed. Some people need conceiving – they won't magically appear by sheer force of will and fate, you know. If you don't get your asses in gear, I'll have to dose you with a love potion and that could have disastrous long-term effects, so chop chop." He nodded, as if that could punctuate his statement with all the understatement he had given it.

"We have another kid?" Leo asked, all wide eyes and gaping mouth.

"Two," Piper said, and at Chris' deer-in-headlights look, "Paige blabbed. She was excited, forgive her."

Chris sighed, nodded and orbed away.

Piper sighed and glared at Leo, and walked out.

"How is this my fault?" Leo shouted after her.

"It's not!" she yelled back, already halfway upstairs and with her shirt already off, "Aren't you coming? I can't impregnate myself, I'm not a nematode!"

Two weeks after the attack, Chris orbed in again and was cornered by Piper in the kitchen. Chris snagged a muffin off the counter and she glared at him expectantly.

He blinked at her and shrugged, "What?"

"Is it done?" she prompted.

"What?" he repeated dumbly.

"Is the bun in the oven?"

He gave her a confused look and went over to the stove and opened it, seeing nothing. Piper rolled her eyes, stalked out and muttered not-so-under-her-breath, "Men! Whitelighters! Gah!"

He stared after her helplessly, shrugged, snagged another muffin and orbed out.

Consequently, he forgot to close the oven door.

Three weeks after the attack, Chris orbed in at breakfast, where Piper, Phoebe and Paige were half-caffeinated, walked over, grabbed Piper's hand, shook it firmly and said, "Congratulations. It's a boy."

He then turned to the counter, saw the bowl of fruit, and "liberated" two bananas and an apple. He then nodded at them, tipped an imaginary hat and orbed away.

Phoebe slurped another sip of coffee, turned to Piper and asked, "When did he start taking food?"

"He eats?" Paige asked, tiredly, "Next you'll be suggesting he sleeps."

Seconds later, two coffee mugs clinked against the table as Phoebe shrieked, "You're pregnant?!

"Another boy?" Paige asked tiredly, "Congratulations."

…

It had been an entire month after the attack, when Piper cornered Chris again. She asked, "Did you mean to break Leo and me up when you came to the past?"

Now that was a question that no child wanted to hear.

He shook his head, and answered honestly, "I didn't mean to, if that's what you meant, but in my future it was inevitable. I made Leo an Elder early in order to get closer to you and keep a closer eye on Wyatt. He's made an Elder in my timeline when – around 2008 or so. And your marriage pretty much fell apart then. It deconstructed entirely as time went on and he barely visited. Your third child couldn't orb, so I doubt Leo was her father, but I'm not really sure."

"So Leo and I," she paused, keeping her expression stony and impartial, "weren't meant to be?" She thought of their wedding, of the Elders putting up a fuss, of how he couldn't accept their firstborn, of how she bullied him into conceiving their second son, and she felt despair.

Chris frowned and she shivered briefly. He said, "No, you guys definitely loved each other, where I'm from. He was just never around and you raised your kids on your own and with your sisters of course. If it helps," Chris paused, wondering whether or not he should say it but decided that since he'd already penetrated the topic, he might as well go balls deep, "he never stopped loving you. Not ever, not even after you died, not even with his dying breath did he ever stop loving you."

"I died?" she whispered.

Chris cursed himself and she shivered more. He reluctantly nodded, "You all did. As far as I know, Wyatt had no hand whatsoever in your death."

"Gee, thanks, Chris," she said sarcastically, "Sorry, you're dead, but be relieved your evil son didn't kill you."

"He killed Leo, Paige and Phoebe if that makes you feel any better," Chris replied grimly, "Well, he ordered the deaths of Leo, Paige and Phoebe. And he killed all of the rebellious Halliwell and Matthews children personally."

"Leo? Paige? Phoebe?" she gasped, "Their children?"

"Well, after he rose to power," Chris replied vaguely, "anyone who stood against him died or fled. He called them traitors, agents of evil, corrupt."

"He ordered the death of his own father? His family?" she asked quietly, "I think I need to sit down." She sat heavily on the sofa, whispering quietly, "My son kills us all."

Chris cringed, "Not really. Melinda sided with him. So did Parker, Kat and Pam, but if it helps, Tammy, Junior, P.J., and your second son all stood against him." _Eventually_, he added silently.

Piper laid her head in her hands. Chris sat next to her hesitantly and she leaned into him, more for warmth than for comfort, but he didn't care about semantics. Not now, when his mother was touching him willingly for the first time in eight years. Chris frowned, "If it helps – "

"It probably won't," Piper remarked quietly.

"If it helps," he began, quieter, "Your son was charismatic. He seemed so reasonable at first. He tore the world apart, yeah, but that was because of all the good he was doing. First, he was summoning demons directly, and killing them outright. He started hunting them down, directly. He'd specifically search papers for missing reports and mutilated bodies and innocents, and tracked down and punished the demons for attacking. He tracked down the demons that orchestrated your death and destroyed them, for example. That's where he crossed the line from protecting the innocent, to punishing the guilty.

"He said," Chris paused, collecting himself, "He said that we had a duty, a solemn honour, a mission to protect the world with all our hearts. What was it to be good, when there was nothing but darkness in the world? What did it matter if he worked with demons and warlocks, if the greater good was served? Why should he care whether or not he was saving more innocents than vanquishing evil?

"If he was an agent of good, why should he only hunt the evil that declared itself and made its home in the Underworld? Why should he stop there? Why shouldn't he actively seek out corruption and purify it?"

When he paused to breathe, he saw Piper was staring at him in what seemed to be horror. Phoebe and Paige had likewise been listening from the edges and Leo was paused on the staircases. Chris swallowed roughly, met their eyes and continued slowly, "That's what he'd say, and we ate it up. We'd all lost people. Me, my mom. Parker and P.J., their father. Kat, her friends. Javid, his species. Why shouldn't we actively seek out the evil? Why shouldn't we destroy it? Why shouldn't we wipe our corruption and purify the world, so no one had to lose anyone anymore?

"So we fought for him," Chris nodded, and Phoebe thought for a moment she could see her breath as Chris' voice grew monotonous where most voices would become choked with emotion.

"You know, it never really occurred to me that what we were doing was wrong. He used to make it sound so reasonable when he told me to go out and kill people, when he ordered us into battle, when he put the flat of Excalibur on each of our shoulders and decreed us the White Knights. He said we were warriors, that we had a noble duty to be chivalrous and represent the right in the world, where everything was so wrong.

"The first time I killed for him, it was when I was fifteen and he was seventeen, and he told me that the Elders had said that we were corrupted and were trying to have us killed. That was true, they sent witches after us and whitelighters and even contracted witch hunters - it seemed like hundreds of agents of Good wanted to kill us. The Elders had barred him from orbing Up There, so Wyatt said to me, 'Chris, the Elders want to kill us.'

"'Why?' I asked him.

"'They think we're Evil,' he told me.

"'But we're not,' I protested.

"He nodded and said to me, 'I know, Chris, but the Elders are a corrupt people. They think the end always justifies the mean - they think they are the pinnacle and be-all and end-all of Good. They think they are the epitome of what it means to be Good, but they aren't. They ignore the cries of thousands every day. Remember Leo, Chris? He abandoned us, he abandoned his wife on their orders, he abandoned you - and for what reason? Because he was too attached to the world. They think attachments are Evil, that feeling love and blurring the lines between whitelighter and witch, witch and mortal, mortal and immortal - they think that's wrong.'

"'But they are the wrong ones,'" Chris made a clear distinction between his monotonous voice and the slightly higher-pitched, honeying voice he used when he recited what Wyatt said to him, as if he was an actor reading off a script.

"'I know, Chris,' he said, 'And when they saw what we were doing, about the people were saving, about the demons we were hunting - they said that we were the evil ones. They said we had crossed the line from protecting the innocent to punishing the guilty - they don't care about the thousands of people we've saved in the process, how many children we've saved from the pain of losing their mother. They say we've tipped the balance too far in Good's favour.'

"'But why is that bad, Wyatt? What's so bad about Good winning for once? Why do we have to keep the balance when lives are at stake?'

"He shrugged and said, 'They say we're wrong, corrupted but we both know that they are the corrupt ones. They've barred me from the Heavens, they say the people we fight alongside are an army, a burgeoning faction - they are recycling whitelighters that willingly heal us out of the goodness of their hearts, they are destroying angels that are helping people. They are the wrong ones, Chris, and I can't do anything about it.'

"I frowned and said, '_I_ can still orb Up There.' I knew what he wanted to do. I was one of his good little soldiers back then. Little did I know, he wanted me to react the very way I did.

"He smiled and shook his head, 'I can't ask you to do that. Leo's up there, your _father_ is up there, our friends, our teachers from Magic School - I can't ask you to stand against them, Chris. There is a difference between standing _with _me and standing _against_ them.'

"'They are corrupt, Wyatt, you said so, I know so,' I told him, so sure of myself, so stupidly loyal that it's sickening 'And Mom taught me to do what is right, not just what is easy. If I back down now, if I say 'no, Wyatt, they aren't wrong' then I am a hypocrite. They abandoned us. They let Piper die, they let Mom die - it's our duty to save the world. They aren't human, not anymore. They aren't Good.' I shook my head and said, 'I'll need a small task force, and we can kill them all.'

"He smiled wider and said, 'Could you really do that? For me?'

"'Not just for you, Wy,' I smiled in return, 'For the Good of the world. This is all for the Greater Good. I can handle this. They would recycle us, if they could. They would exterminate us all. This is for everyone.'

"So, within the week, I orbed up there with a small team - two Phoenix assassins, three darklighters, a witch, a rogue whitelighter, and me - and we killed them all.

"I started with my father.

"I ended with Gideon. He had hidden away in Magic School and evacuated the students. I found him in his office, and he was having tea with his reflection. A reflection that showed another universe, a reflection of our own with our allegiances flipped. At the time, I took it as proof of the corruption of the Elders. I guess it should have worried me that my reflection wore white and was holding an athame whereas I, dressed in black, was holding a darklighter's crossbow. The two Gideons sipped tea in unison and chorused, 'Hello, Chris. I always knew Wyatt was going to turn you.'

"My reflection and I shook our heads and chorused in reply, 'You don't know anything.'

"That night, when I came to Wyatt's room, he smiled at me and said, 'Chris, you did so well. I'm so proud of you.'

"It was pathetic, I remember, at how much that meant to me. My father, the dead-beat coward company man that he was, never said those words. He never said, 'Hey, you know, if I could I would be there for you, go to your little league games, teach you how to orb, send more than a fucking card or a handful of apologetic letters - damn, kid, you did so well despite me never being there for you.'

"Wyatt was more a father to me than Dad was. He taught me how to control my orbs. He taught me how to control my telekinesis. He taught me how to read, albeit a bit later than most kids. Mom was frazzled, with three kids, and her sisters. I get that. I was too quiet and too forgiving and I never pushed myself into her attention quite as often as I should have. He protected me from bullies, remembered my birthdays when Mom forgot and Dad never showed. He taught me to dance and to make spells. He taught me to be a leader.

"In the end, Wyatt deserved my loyalty. He deserved my fealty. I killed Leo, my father, everyone for Wyatt, and Wyatt did so much for me. We were...

"We were.

"I loved him with my entire being, for years, until I realised that he wasn't the paragon of good he had led me to believe. We weren't saving innocents anymore. We weren't hunting demons anymore. He appointed himself the Source of All Magic, King Arthur reborn. His white and blue orbs turned black and violet. He'd hold me close in the night and then call me pathetic for having nightmares. He'd push us hard in training and then call us failures if we lost in sparring. My Wyatt, the one I knew and loved, the one who practically raised me and was with me every step of the way. That Wyatt? He was dead and gone, forever. That's when I betrayed. I was no Morgause to his Arthur, I was no Morgana. I was Mordred. If destiny is real, like you believe, Piper, then it is my destiny to stop Wyatt, so you, your sisters, your husband, your children and their children never know war, never have to betray each other," Chris nodded, determined, "I won't let that happen again.

"Wyatt and I will die first."

Chapter End.

**Edit July 24: Grammar mistakes - three a.m. (ish) is not good for the inner Grammar Nazi.**


	5. Homophobia and Heroes

**Author Notes: First off, if anyone is annoyed I use British English, well, I'm also annoyed at how Americans spell regular words, such as grey, colour, foetus, encyclopaedia and realise. Yeah. I went there. **

**Secondly, please forgive me if I am completely butchering Leo's thought process, because I am not by any means nor have I ever been homophobic (there was a time where I was ignorant over parts of the LGBTQQIAA community, but that was so long ago I barely remember it). I decided to make him confused, and a little disgusted, but I am honestly not sure what homophobic people think like on the topic of homosexuality, whether or not Chris and Wyatt have a relationship in this story. I also made him a bit thick, because honestly that's how homophobic people seem on the topic, regardless of any other knowledge they might have. If Chris is bi in this story (depending on what you believe about my insinuations), Leo clearly doesn't know what A. bisexuality is **_**or**_** B. does not believe it actually exists.**

**Thirdly, I'd like to emphasise the fact that I SHARE NO BELIEF WITH LEO in this chapter. His statements and thoughts are NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF MY PERSONAL OPINIONS OR THOUGHTS. He is a character in a story that I need to get over the very small arc of development from homophobic dipshit to accepting, vaguely homophobic buttface. I apologise for the OOCness. You can always leave. **

**Chapter 4: Homophobia and Heroes**

_Nonchalant_

(Adjective.)

Feeling or appearing calm and relaxed; not displaying interest, enthusiasm, or anxiety.

* * *

It had been a month and a half after the attack and Chris' interrogation. It had been approximately a month since the conception of Piper's second child. It had been two and a half weeks since Chris' monologue on Wyatt's ethics for taking over the world and slaughtering the Elders.

Leo wasn't sure how to feel. The Elders were jingling him every now and then but he was ignoring them. He went up to inform Gideon he was going on sick leave and he had left him too stunned to notice he had coated himself in fairy dust to hide himself from them. Sometimes he could imagine Chris saying, "If Elders had brains, they'd come to Halliwell Manor, but as happenstance goes, they lose their brains over time. I think it's the consistent lack of orbing that slowly drains away any individual or unique thought they might have ever had." But, Chris had never said any such thing, though it did seem surprisingly in character if Chris was in a playful mood and around any single one of the sisters, especially considering Leo could hardly stand being in the same room as him. It wasn't the fact that Chris had sent him to Valhalla (no matter how often Chris denied it), or that Chris was ultimately on a _Terminator_-esque mission to save Wyatt and the world. It wasn't even the fact that Chris had admitted to having worked for Evil, or even believing in their key principles at one point in his life. It was his "out-dated, immoral, unethical, backwards, vaguely misogynistic, outright discriminatory, homophobic beliefs" and how Chris seemed to tie in to his son. (_I love him... he loved me_, he heard him whisper, the truth rod verifying it for all to hear and know).

One thing didn't fit, though.

Chris clearly liked women. There was that one charge that "Oh, he _used_ protection!" on. There was Bianca, with whom he seemed to have a deep, normal, completely heterosexual, 100% healthy relationship – aside from the fact he seemed to sleep around on her despite being engaged to her.

_Was that a_, he paused even in his thoughts, thinking of his parents, of his brother, of his little baby boy and continued hesitantly, _gay_ _thing? _Did his baby boy also grow up to sleep around? …Not to mention taking over the world and conveniently ordering his father's death? _Was that _also_ a gay thing?! _

No, he sighed internally, it probably all ties to the fact he didn't seem to be around when his kids were growing up. If he was around and was a proper male figure in his son's life, gave the firm hand to offset Piper's gentile touch, to be a calm, stable figure, a hero his sons could emulate in every way – if he hadn't left Piper to play at being both the mother and the father, maybe his son wouldn't have grown up to like men.

There was no way he could put it in his head that didn't make it his fault that his son was _gay_.

Even if he was "born that way" like it said in Phoebe's handy brochure. That makes it his fault, his genes that made him that way. After all, it was _his _sperm that had a Y chromosome over the traditional X chromosome that had perpetuated Piper's family since Melinda Warren in Salem, MA. Maybe Wyatt was meant to be the Prudence Melinda that Piper had seen in the future. He'd bet anything that the Prudence Melinda Wyatt was supposed to be was straight.

And now Piper was pregnant again, with _another _boy. It was practically blasphemy. He could hear Penny now, cursing him along with all men.

Now, Wyatt was foretold, he could accept that. Penny could accept that – she knew the prophecies as well as any Warren-blooded Matriarch did. She knew one who was blessed twice by the realms of Good magic would eventually be born to a strong line of wise women and would revolutionise the Magical and Mortal worlds. She knew a powerful male figure would rise to power as the heir to King Arthur, blessed by all magic and anointed by the Good and the Wise. She knew this. She just wasn't expecting them to be the same vessel or a Warren witch. Maybe someday, Leo could accept his son completely, and maybe this time Wyatt wouldn't end up….

And Chris?

…Did Chris ever look at him? _Look _at him? Had he ever said something Leo hadn't given thought to? Had he ever insinuated something that Leo thought to be innocuous? That was slightly sickening, but he could handle it. Chris had said he had always loved Piper, even when Chris had apparently raided the Heavens and played a hand in the deaths of thousands of whitelighters and Elders. Phoebe's brochure had said that being gay was not contagious, but what did she know? She was safe! She was a woman, not some man. And clearly, he thought to himself, it is contagious otherwise it wouldn't be genetic. _Did _he have some sort of genetic disposition towards it? Would his next son _also_ be gay? A homosexual? Would he?

If he voiced such thoughts however, Piper _would _blow him up. Paige and Phoebe might, too, just because they thought he was stupid and backwards.

Chris might just laugh at him or shake his head with those judgemental green eyes of his.

…Should he know that Chris' eyes were green? Had _Leo _ever looked at _Chris_? Leo shuddered and shook his head. It didn't work like that, it didn't! Leo was just being stupid, wasn't he? There wasn't anything to it, nope, not at all.

He wasn't some homosexual, and if he had any say in it, his son wouldn't be either. Not Wyatt and not this next baby boy. He would not allow it!

He looked down at his little blond baby, sleeping in his crib, and sat heavily in the rocking chair. He sighed and felt like hitting something, preferably Chris. Why? Because apparently Chris had f – slept with his baby boy. Tainted him probably. After all, Chris seemed to say that Wyatt and he went all the way back to childhood. And Chris? With that frost he was able to create, and those chambers in the Underworld? Frost-freezing is not a witch power – it's a warlock power. And Chris did seem to honestly believe that shit he was spouting, those horrible statements that he claimed were Wyatt's ethics and party response. He'd bet anything that Chris put those thoughts in Wyatt's head, not Wyatt putting them into Chris'.

Chris came to the past, lied about having to save Paige from the Titans, lied about what he was, lied about who he was – there was no Chris Perry in the Book of Life Up There, and the Angels of Destiny did not recognise such a name – broke up Leo's marriage to Piper, turned Leo into an Elder, banished him to Valhalla, killed Valkyries and witches "for the Greater Good", willingly infiltrated the Underworld, lied in every breath, was promiscuous, and probably turned Wyatt evil! That could be his master plan – come the past, ingratiate himself to the Charmed Ones, and turn their youngest, the Twice-Blessed Childe, to the path of Evil.

Half-warlock, half-whitelighter. It probably happened accidently, Leo mused. His mother, a youthful witch, meets and falls in love with her whitelighter, but eventually falls into evil, becoming a warlock. Then, nine months after losing her whitelighter, she gives birth to the half-breed, Chris, and when he came into his powers, his Window of Opportunity did not decide his affiliation because he committed neither an act of evil nor an act of good. Raised as a warlock's child in the Underworld, Chris learnt the politics and the skills of demons before his mother was probably vanquished by the Charmed Ones who promptly found him and rescued him - no, the demon Zoras killed his mother because she had somehow hidden Chris' whitelighter origins while Chris was apprenticed under Zoras' teachings, but afterwards, the Charmed Ones who were hunting his mother found him and rescued him. Then, he befriended Wyatt and silently turned him from Good to Evil.

He nodded, staring at his baby and decided right then and there that he wouldn't let Chris turn his son evil.

Or gay.

Right now, he'd be happy with one or the other.

…

At Magic School, when Chris was young, Paige told him the stories of all of the Charmed Ones' adventures while he was waiting for Wyatt to get out of class and orb them back home, though he could orb himself. She told him of his Aunt Prue, and of Melinda Warren, and of the first witch, and of countless battles that were eventually recorded in magical textbooks, into the Book of Shadows so that it was fifty pages thicker, and after their deaths, in Wyatt's textbooks.

He liked to hear the stories of love, of redemption, of battles between good and evil, of loyalties and affiliations turning sister against sister, of genies, of mermaids, of misadventures. He liked to hear the stories of an angel called Leo, of a demon called Cole, of a cupid called Coop, of a mortal called Henry. He loved to hear of the growth of a telekinetic workaholic, of a daydreaming family-focused young chef, of a fanciful, flirty youth, of a responsible, dedicated witch. He liked to hear of the countless unions between warlocks and witches, of affiliations changing as quickly as their hair colours, he liked to hear the stories of their past lives, of spirits, and of traipsing across the eleven realms. He liked to hear about time travel.

His most favourite stories – for that was what they seemed like at the time – had to do with Melinda Warren being reborn in the future and defeating a warlock for the second time armed with the spotted feather of an endangered spotted owl, and with past lives coming back to kill you, and with dangerous warlocks seducing witches into darkness, and of familiars that were people all along, and finally of epic battles that decided the fate of the universe. He liked to hear of Billie fighting fate, of gods come to life, of Cole becoming immortal to return to Phoebe and then organising her happiness, of his mother who crossed time and space to save her sisters.

But his favourite story? That would have to be the tale of Perry Baxter. He loved to hear the stories of the time traveller called Perry who travelled across time to stop a great evil from destroying the future by infecting the latest generation of Charmed Ones with darkness. Paige told him very little about Perry and said he didn't have to worry about it. That story was over, and the sisters had loved and hated Perry so much that it hurt to speak of him.

Chris had insisted and eventually Paige had broken and told him of the man who stood alone against all forces of the universe to protect them, how he saved Paige from the Titans, and how, on the very day that Chris Perry Halliwell was born, Perry had stopped the great evil and returned to the future. She smiled through her tears and said, "You were named for him, you know? He did so much, sacrificed so much to save our future, and so we named you for him."

But Chris knew the truth. He had since he was young. Stories could only go so far after all with no historical corroboration and with no word from Phoebe or Piper on the subject when he talked about him at dinner. Paige was only trying to appease the adventurous spirit of a rambunctious little boy who needed a male figure to look up to, so she gave him that.

It didn't help the childhood pain of the truth, however. Just as mortal children cried at the loss of Santa Clause and the Tooth airy as they go from gullible children to skeptical adolescents, he, a magical child, cried at the loss of the time-travelling super hero. Perry Baxter had been _made up_. After all, he didn't save Paige from the Titans. Chris did. Perry Baxter didn't save the next generation of Charmed Ones from evil, because Wyatt still turned and destroyed the world. If Perry Baxter had been real, even a little bit, Chris wouldn't be trying to save the past now. Perry Baxter had been strong and unrealistic – he never failed, he never faltered, and he pressed on to save the universe and his loved ones. Besides, there was no such spell in the Book of Shadows to send him into the past.

Chris knew, because when he looked in the Book of Shadows with Wyatt when Chris was eight and Wyatt was almost ten, they saw no such spell and Wyatt said, "I guess it's not real."

Chris had stared at him and protested with all childlike wonder still intact, "He's from the future, dummy, he probably just hasn't written it, yet."

"Maybe he didn't write it," Wyatt said, giving him a long-suffering you-still-believe-in-Santa-and-it's-annoying-but-I'm-not-going-to-disillusion-you-because-I'm-not-a-dick-bag look and said, "Maybe we wrote it."

Chris gave him that big toothy grin and set to writing it in childish scrawl and innate power. Stylised later by the inborn magic and teenaged editing when Chris was thirteen, when he looked back and saw it and wrote it in fancy script because he could and he knew it would piss Wyatt off if he looked. , But as children, he drew the moon and Wyatt drew the sun and they took turns writing magical numbers in a circle where upon Chris scrawled the fateful words, "Hear these words, hear the rhyme/Heed the hope within my mind/Send back to where I'll find/What I wish in space and time."

It was childish and probably shouldn't have worked when he thought about it again when he was twenty and desperate to stop Wyatt. He thought of his child hero, Perry Baxter, and to his middle name where Chris had been named for him. Whether or not there had been an actual Perry Baxter, and whether or not he had actually travelled back in time to try and save the world hadn't mattered anymore when Chris only had hope hanging on by bloody fingernails and desperation to match the bravest of warmongers of history. So what if Perry Baxter was the one made up story that Paige – or anyone – had ever told him?

What did it matter, when he could recreate that story now, in his own sweat and blood and tears? Why else would he introduce himself as "Chris Perry" straight off rather than think of a better alias? The made-up time traveller who saved the world, and the flesh and blood child named for him – united at last in the same mission, reliving the same story, just like Paige told him, connected by a name and a bucket of hope and wonder. _Pathetic_, his inner Wyatt remarked.

Because, Chris knew, heroes didn't really exist. Not in war. Perry Baxter, if he were real, would be lying with every breath, like Chris did, he'd do anything to save the future, like Chris is doing, and he'd have saved Wyatt with his last breath, because that was what Chris was willing to do. If Perry Baxter were real, he'd have looked up to Chris, because in a world without heroes, Chris sure seemed like one anyway.

…

When Chris orbed in for whatever reason he had – Chris always seemed so sporadic and random – and saw her throwing up, he had a mini freak-out. Why? Because Piper was _throwing up_. She hadn't had morning sickness this early with Wyatt, but what can you do? And, why did they call it morning sickness? It didn't happen just in the morning – the little peanut inside her didn't seem to like _anything _she ate and was determined to starve her out, apparently.

"Are you sick?" he asked worriedly, leaning forwards to hold back her hair while she heard him gag in tandem with her, "Do you have the flu? Are you okay? Are you dying? Were you cursed? Did you drink or eat anything vaguely suspicious? Did you – " All while he held her hair, and then eased her back up to her feet with such a gentle hand that she had never felt before from Chris.

She laughed at him when she surmised his worry was very real and very tangible. In fact, it was the rawest bit of emotion he wore on his face since he came back through the portal a second time, armed with an engagement ring, a ripped out page and thousands of minor wounds. She smacked his arm lightly and said, "I take it you've never seen a pregnancy before?"

"I've seen pregnancies," he protested, "I've never seen someone get sick in a pregnancy! Are you d – "

"I'm not dying, Chris," she told him, grinning and speaking slowly as if she was speaking to Forrest Gump or a small child, "It's just morning sickness."

"It's not morning!" he replied shrilly. In fact, it was three in the afternoon.

She smacked his arm again, pushing his prying, worried hands off of her and said, "It's only called morning sickness. It doesn't mean anything. The little peanut just doesn't seem to like anything I eat."

"P-peanut?" he whispered, shocked.

"Yeah," she said, still in that condescending tone, "The baby."

"Are you going to name him 'peanut'?" he asked worriedly, "Why are you using the P-tradition now? Wyatt wasn't named Patrick or Peter, why are you naming this one Peanut?"

She rolled her eyes and said, "I'm not going to name him 'peanut' you doofus, it's just what I'm calling him for now," she lowered her eyes and looked at Chris from under her eyelashes and tried to seem as innocent and Paige-like as possible, "What do _you _think I should call him?"

Chris rolled his eyes and said, "I'm not going to fall for that, you know. Future consequences. You have to name him all on your own."

"C'mon," she whinged, "Give me a hint. Was he made fun of at school? Should I have named him something else? Should I have a list of names to avoid? What's his middle name, at least? That can't be too disastrous for me to know. C'mon, just a little middle name." She blinked twice, like Phoebe would to get her way, but she was afraid that didn't work.

In fact, it made Chris blink in reply and step back very slowly with wide green eyes. She batted her eyelashes again and he sighed, "He wasn't made fun of. His name was fine. Don't name him Peanut, or Patrick, or Peter, or anything P-related – Phoebe had the monopoly on that. And, no. I'm not telling you his middle name because it could, in fact, be very disastrous," he nodded finally, "I think that was all the questions."

She sighed dramatically, throwing her whole body into it, and cocking her head like a puppy, holding up her forefinger and her thumb for good measure as she asked, "Not even a teensy little hint?"

Chris sighed in reply, but with wide green eyes that glinted slightly in the light.

It occurred to her after a moment of disbelief that Chris was attempting to be playful with her.

However, in that moment, Chris had taken his chance and disappeared to do whatever it is Chrises do in their spare time. His reason for orbing in at that moment remains all around unknown.

…

Leo was waiting in the Underworld when Chris walked in. Chris was wearing a black shirt and black trousers and he was halfway into a (of course) black high-collared blazer. Chris sighed and said, "I only got the one blazer, so, you can't infiltrate the darklighters with me. And it cost a small fortune I'll assure you – darklighters can smell their blood from a mile away, so I had to buy a new one." He rolled his eyes as if that was supposed to make Leo suddenly act like a decent human being towards one.

"Darklighters?" Leo asked suspiciously, "What happened to the warlocks?"

Chris raised a brow and smirked, as he shoved his other arm through the other sleeve, "You think I can't infiltrate into more than one organisation? What am I, five?"

"What happens if they find out you're not a darklighter?"

Chris scoffed and buttoned up his blazer, "You see, Leo, the whole point of espionage is not to get caught. Otherwise, you just deserve to die, because you're clearly not fit to reproduce."

"Did Wyatt tell you that?" Leo asked, struggling to hold the neutrality in his voice.

Chris shrugged, "What does it matter? It's true," he paused on the last button, the one just under his collar bone, "It's evolution. The strong and the cunning survive long enough to pass on their genes, the weak and the stupid die out eventually."

"You're strong and cunning?"

"I like to think so, despite your overwhelming disbelief," Chris nodded to himself, staring at the reflection in the ice.

"Were you born with this ice ability?" Leo asked curiously, feeling at his deep self-hatred the shard of distaste falling into his voice.

Chris gave him a look and shrugged, "Yeah, I guess."

"You guess?"

"It was an extension of my powers as time went on."

"What does molecular inhibition have to do with telekinesis?" Leo asked, feeling another unintentional sliver of hatred slip into his tone.

Chris turned and said, crinkling his cheeks as he narrowed his eyes, "It's not molecular inhibition. Kat could do that, not me."

"Kat?"

"Paige's daughter," Chris supplied, "She sided with Wyatt. She could slow, immobilise and inhibit molecules."

"Why are you telling me?"

"If you have any sense about you," Chris began, his tone derisive enough to suggest no, he didn't believe Leo to have any sense at all, "you'd have already looked up the Angels of Destiny and begged for knowledge of the future to confirm my story – and they did in front of all of the Elders, which is one of the principle reasons why I'm still here."

"The Angels of Destiny had no idea who you were," Leo told him, deciding the risk was easier to take when Chris was cornered.

Chris stared at him, "Yeah, and?"

"Why didn't they know who you were?"

"Because I'm not stupid enough to use my real name, for one," Chris began, sounding as if he honestly thought Leo was an idiot, "most reputable time travellers, you know, the ones who follow the Rules of Time Travel, take a title rather than reveal their identity such as the Terminator or the Balancer or the Assistant. Others use completely different names from their own like Perry Baxter did.

"Plus," Chris shrugged, "when I met them, they literally couldn't see me. It was hilarious because Wyatt started freaking out because he thought someone had gone back in time or something equally fantastic and had erased my destiny, which makes no sense at all and I told him that wasn't realistic because if they erased my destiny, they erased my purpose and I wouldn't have been born. That's what the Fates said when we found them, and they couldn't see me either. So don't give it much thought."

Leo thought it sounded insane and made up, "They couldn't hear you?"

"They acted like I literally wasn't there and completely ignored me when I introduced myself as an ambassador for Wyatt's Court. Thankfully, Wyatt was with me, otherwise I would have done something drastic to try and get their attention. One of them said it seemed like I never existed at all, despite the fact they knew intellectually I was there. It was like a perception filter."

"Uh-huh," Leo replied, "and I take it, that was also a reason you specifically had to come to the past."

Chris gave him a look and said, "Is this going to devolve into an impromptu interrogation where you ask me if I sent you to Valhalla and I say I didn't? Because if it is, I have a very busy schedule and whitelighters whose deaths I need to fake, and this can wait until later, okay?"

He started orbing, but Leo grabbed him and threw him down on the floor. Chris stared at him wide-eyed and remarked, "You know, you're a lot like Wyatt, when you're young."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he glared, pulling him up by the collar of his blazer.

"You're grabby, pushy, overtly violent, condescending and an overall jackass when someone doesn't bend to your will," Chris replied, voice dripping with acid, "Plus, you seem to think that everything I say is a lie, _and _you have no respect for other people, personal boundaries or schedules that differ from your own. And take your goddamned hands off of me."

Leo dropped him and Chris groaned as his skull hit the ice. He turned and got himself up and said, "Besides, you made me forget to put on my glamour. The hell, Leo? I know you want me to die as much as your son does, but c'mon, can't that wait until after I prevent your son from killing the world?" Chris reached into his pocket and swallowed down a potion. He held up a finger when Leo went to speak and Leo felt like biting said finger off because _how dare he shush him!_

Chris whispered, "Don't freak out, but are my orbs black?" He orbed in response and reappeared in front of Leo. Leo went out to punch him and Chris, in reply, kneed him. Leo collapsed, moaning like a guy who'd just been kneed, and Chris rolled his eyes, "I'll take that as a yes. Thanks for wasting my time and making me late. I'm sure you'll be happy to know that in putting my life in jeopardy just jeopardised the lives of thirteen whitelighters, I'll have you know, and you're endangering all chances I have of saving your son. Gah – and shut up would you, I didn't knee you that badly!" Chris waved his hand and orbed Leo home.

What a wimp.

Didn't he used to be in the army or something?

...

It wasn't until hours later that Leo realised that Chris had completely and successfully diverted attention away from his abilities.

Chapter End.

**July 24 Edit: Grammar Mistakes (I used the wrong "your/you're), and continuity mistakes (Leo knew intellectually that Chris' mom was murdered by Zoras, not vanquished by the Charmed Ones, so I added in a sentence and I hope that was okay) were successfully patched. ****I don't have a beta and I don't really want one, so if you see any of my 3 A.M. mistakes, forgive me or tell me.**


	6. Tots and Tongues

**Author's Notes:**

**IMPORTANT: In this story, for Wyatt's adult character, I envision a child – a bratty, stubborn, spoilt, possessive child. He is clingy, he yells, he hits, he is often inappropriate, but as heart he is innocent. Therefore, I just want to make it clear that Wyatt's and Chris' relationship is not healthy, but is **not sexual**. Wyatt doesn't understand personal space and is physically and emotionally abusive. Chris doesn't know how to safely discourage Wyatt – if he does, he might get an energy ball to the stomach. Wyatt doesn't understand social cues and pretty much bullies Chris into putting up with him.**

**I would also like to thank the polite, anonymous reviewer under the pseudonym "Guest" who shared his/her/zeir reservations and argued succinctly and courteously on behalf of the route of this story. S/he/ze was very polite and I commend him/her/zem. Thank you.**

**The warnings for this chapter are generally: OOC, female pregnancy, irony, implied slash and het, miscommunication, implied Sibling on Sibling abuse, mentions of warfare, graphic memories of murder, misuse of canon, antisocial disorder, personal boundaries issues, and generally rated M.**

**Chapter 5: Tots and Tongues**

_Glacial_

(Adjective).

Relating to, resulting from, or denoting the presence or agency of ice, especially in the form of glaciers; icy.

* * *

Chris was eighteen when Wyatt gave him the gift of freedom.

Previous to that moment, the Inner Circle of Wyatt's Court was as trapped as the commoners within the safe zones, if Wyatt didn't orb with them. He took Chris aside, wished him a Happy Birthday even though Chris refused to celebrate due to his mother's death, and tied the leather-string around his neck. From the leather thong hung a series of wolf teeth, cat's eye shells and a large blue glass bead with a black circle imprinted upon a slightly larger yellow circle, impressed on a larger white circle which was impressed on the blue glass bead so that it seemed like a strange eye.

"It's a nazar," Wyatt supplied, resting the edge of his fingers on the glass eye bead, "it'll protect you from the evil eye and most harmful magic," His fingers drifted to the cat's eye shells in between the bead and in between each tooth, "These are ancient protection charms that will protect you from the rest of harmful magic and the evil eye," his fingers finally cradled one of the six wolf teeth, the ones carved with runes and symbols, and said, "and these are Indian symbols of loyalty and represent the hunters and protectors in a tribe. They will guide you on your path."

Chris peered down at the gift and gave Wyatt a look from under his lashes, "Why are you giving me this?"

Wyatt smiled his little-boy smile, the one that did not belong on that dark face and above those dark clothes, and said, "I love you. I'll always want to keep you safe. You've never steered me wrong, you've never betrayed me, and you've always been there for me. You've fought for me and you're always willing to argue with me. You mean a lot to me and I think it is time I show you the respect you deserve."

Chris stared at him, looking deep into his eyes as if he was searching for some unknown message in those hazel eyes, before he sighed and smiled for his brother. Anyone could see it was half-faked, even though he enjoyed his brother's doting. Chris could tolerate the random gifts and backhanded compliments, he could tolerate that Wyatt still refused to sleep in his own bed as if Wyatt was ten and Chris was eight rather than the twenty and eighteen they were respectively, he could tolerate the insults and the "sparring," he could tolerate everything because he knew one day, he just wouldn't take it anymore. He would assert himself, a la _Methods of Rationality, _as a different faction and could even see himself slaying Wyatt one day. Not recently, but after, he fancied, several years of harsh battles and after Wyatt lost himself completely to Evil, and he could see that this blond eyed, gift-giving, clingy fiend was not human anymore, let alone his brother.

Wyatt rolled his eyes, somehow completely unaware of Chris' thoughts, "They can bypass almost any ward in existence, including the ones here."

Chris felt like a bucket of water was splashing over him. His eyes widened, wavering like the pools of a mountain glade in an earthquake, and his Pan-Am grimace froze on his face. Wyatt looked at him expectantly and was already posturing himself like a peacock. Chris blinked, very slowly and said, "T-thank you, Wyatt. Y-you – I," he paused grinning in reply, the raw emotion in his voice adding to his tone, "You are the best in the whole world. The absolute best. I – thank you, thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to me." _You have no idea how much this is breaking my heart. _

"I know," Wyatt grinned, chest all puffed up, shoulders wide and stance proud and tall. He was like a child. A giant, stupid, selfish child. He had that stupid Pre-Event, goofy I-just-made-my-brother-smile-and-that-makes-me-awesome grin_._ He also had the horrible, evil smirk leering at the edges of his face, but for now, the backhanded comments were locked away. Chris and Wyatt would not "spar" that day. They would not battle, they would not strategise and they wouldn't pander to allies or subjects. Today, they were just Chris and Wyatt, Wyatt and Chris – the Brothers Grimm, the rulers of the world, witches, whitelighters, the last stand against Evil.

At that realisation, Chris leant forwards, for the first time in months, outside of when they slept and Wyatt cuddled up to him like a giant, stupid Labrador, and wrapped his arms around his big brother, feeling the muscle along his shoulders, feeling the innate strength, the power and wondered to himself how anyone couldn't see his brother for the giant toddler he seemed to be after they had taken the world. Was it the muscle? Was it the hair? Why couldn't everyone see his brother as he truly was, at heart, once someone stripped away the magic and the power and the absolute power and Excalibur? Why was he the only one to see his brother? Why couldn't the Resistance see him for what he was, outside of the Evil?

…

Piper was about two months pregnant when a demon attacked and wounded her leg (Leo healed it a few minutes later). She remarked that this baby didn't have a force field or automatically healed her on any appearance of wounding and Chris had sputtered and reddened and said, "Really? Wyatt had a force field and could heal _from the womb_?"

She had smiled at him playfully, thinking of how she must have tortured Wyatt by showing his little beau all of his embarrassing baby pictures. That is, if she hadn't died before they had gotten together – but with the way Chris sounded when he talked about Wyatt, saying he'd practically raised him, and was always there for him, so Chris must have seen his baby pictures and everything. She wondered briefly if Chris had any baby pictures, or if she could visit the little baby Chris and get all the dirt on him for when he came around and stole her baby's heart. It was only proper if Chris was going to go back and tease Wyatt – a good, kind Wyatt – about being a baby and babbling to "Kwis" about "cahs and buses and cats and twees" like he was before the demon attacked, that she should get to tease him about being a baby, which lead to her asking him, "Hey Chris, have you been born yet?"

He flushed curiously and said, "Future consequences."

She rolled her eyes but didn't push it, and Chris gave her a look before turning back to the picture book that Wyatt was trying with all his might to read to Chris, so he was basically pointing to random pictures, which Chris, who was staring into Wyatt's young hazel eyes with a bright intensity that seemed so out of place when Chris wasn't vanquishing demons (she had forced him to take a break on account of certain death), was slowly teaching Wyatt about each and every character in the baby book.

"This is a car," Chris said slowly, pointing and Wyatt clapped happily and repeated, "Cah."

"Car," Chris tried to emphasise and Wyatt grinned and said, "Cah, ba ma cah, Kwis!" raising his toy car and waving it frantically as Chris stared on in quiet amusement.

She watched as Chris nodded in reply and said in reply, "I love your blue car, Wyatt." And Wyatt squealed and laughed happily and levitated his car with his orbs so his blue car could float.

Piper blinked, "That's new."

Chris gave her a reluctant smile, "Wait until the next one comes. They'll be orbing each other across the room and out of the house and across the city. Once he orbed me into a bush outside because I broke his blue car," Chris pointed to the floating car that Wyatt was laughing at and gave a soft smile in Wyatt's direction, "And every time I orbed back in, he'd automatically orb me out. It was funny."

Piper's eyes were so wide, "Wyatt orbed my peanut out of the house? Across San Francisco?"

Chris blinked at her and backtracked, "He orbed Wyatt out of the house, too, once he figured out how. Wyatt used to orb him to Gr – Victor's house. On one memorable occasion, Wyatt's brother orbed Wyatt out of the clutches of demons on Victor's coaching, but he was like a year and a half old."

"I leave my kids with my dad?" Piper asked.

"Yeah, after you faked your death to avoid the cops," Chris blinked, silent for a brief moment after speaking, "Forget I said that."

Chris was suddenly wacked in the head by a fat baby hand as a toddler screamed, "Kwis! Cah!"

Piper's eyes widened and she grabbed Wyatt up and said, "No, sir! You do not hit!"

Wyatt stared at her in surprise and said, aghast, with the red angry face only a toddler could possess, "Ma! Kwis!"

She said, trying to keep her voice level and calm, "Hitting is mean. Hitting is not nice. It hurts. You don't hit people. Say sorry to Chris and never hit anyone ever again!"

Wyatt started crying in earnest but Chris was simply staring at her with wide green eyes. She looked him in the eyes dead-on and simply said, "Hitting is wrong."

Five or so minutes passed. Wyatt had composed himself and Piper set him down, and he toddled over to Chris, threw himself into his arms and cried, "Sowwy! Nice, nice, nice, nice, nice."

"I know you're nice, Wyatt," Chris replied, "I forgive you. I forgive you for everything. You're a nice little boy and I love you." Wyatt grinned at him and flumped down on his bum to keep playing. He looked at his mother and grinned and she smiled in return.

"Chris?" she asked, "Can I talk to you?" she motioned to the kitchen.

Chris' face blanked, and he handed Wyatt his blue car, as he stood and went over to the kitchen. Piper said, "Mommy will be right back, kay?" Wyatt gave her a look but didn't comment as he fingered the edges of his car.

In the kitchen, Chris looked at her apprehensively. And she gave him an appraising look. She crossed her arms and he leaned on the table. They stood in silence momentarily before she finally said, "Don't pull any 'future consequences' on me right now, because this is important. If you don't answer me, trust me, there will be future consequences and it has nothing to do with twenty years from now!"

He nodded softly, waiting for anything, half-expecting she had figured him out.

"Did Wyatt usually hit you?" she asked, biting her cheek.

Chris blinked and gaped slightly, "What – why do you ask?"

"Answer me, Chris," she growled, "Did Wyatt continuously hit you?"

"What do you mean?" Chris asked, brows drawing together, "Wyatt hasn't hit me before, he just wanted my attention. He didn't mean it the way it looked, he's only a baby!"

"I mean, Chris," she lowered her head, trying to compose herself, "Did Wyatt hit you when you were in his Court?"

Chris stared at her and said finally, "You mean me, specifically, not just general I-control-you-and-therefore-you're-mine-to-break? You mean, did he specifically target me, above the others?"

"Yeah," she said, holding her breath, "Did Wyatt hit you?" Chris stared at her and she felt like her heart was breaking into a billion pieces because of the way those eyes trailed along her face and appraised whether or not she was able to handle the truth, whether or not she was willing to hear it. He didn't answer her and she took that as her answer. She nodded and felt the tears surge, "Was that my fault?"

"What?" he gasped, "You were an amazing mother. You _are_ an amazing mother. How could you think that?!"

"I mean," she paused, feeling her eyes leak and the tears fall and Chris looked horribly uncomfortable. She pushed herself into him and wrapped her arms around him and she could feel him stiffen against her and his face freeze into surprise. She tried again, "I mean, when I'm mad at Leo, I blow him up or freeze him, and Wyatt must have seen that and must have thought that meant it was acceptable to hit people – and this is all my fault."

"No, it's not," Chris replied, "This is not your fault. Something evil happened to Wyatt, something got to him and everything is wrong. I know for a fact that nothing you did made Wyatt this way. Even if he was just born a psychopath, it was not your fault. You can't blame yourself for something you didn't do, because nothing you did turned Wyatt."

"It wasn't anything you did, either," she told him, wiping at her face, hoping her neurotic whitelighter who might end up her son in law didn't blame himself either, "You didn't make him evil, Chris. Don't – if there isn't anything to be done, if Wyatt is just meant to be evil, you don't have to be alone in this. If all else fails, if worse comes to worst, you let one of us handle it, okay? You don't do anything, okay?"

Chris stared at her, but said nothing anymore, not sure what his mother was trying to tell him, but rarely was sure of what she was getting at. Honestly, it was pretty typical of life growing up. _Oh, Chris, look at what Wyatt did to you. I'll be fine, Mom, he didn't mean it. _Chris gets beat up and has to tell his mother it would all be okay. That was another shard of a parallelism and he felt his barriers melt away even more.

Piper hugged her whitelighter determinedly and decided right then and there that she would not make Chris kill Wyatt, if worse comes to worst. No one deserved to kill the love of their life, let alone lose him or her to darkness. She thought of Phoebe, crying for days and days, of struggling to find love when she felt her soul torn in two inside of her. She thought of Prue, at Andy Trudeau's funeral. She thought of Richard, and Paige who sighed dejectedly out the window. Finally, she thought of Leo and imagined his eyes completely black and having to vanquish him, and she felt her soul scream.

She held him close and felt curiously a round bead press into her cheek, maybe one day she'd ask what it was, this necklace, and if Wyatt gave it to him.

…

The Resistance, Chris sighed internally, when he was left to his thoughts in the bathroom of their mansion. Wyatt was feeling clingy, so it was a wonder he was able to go off to the bathroom. He had quipped, "Wyatt, I don't need you to hold it for me – I'm an adult," when he had opened the bathroom door and Wyatt was right on his heels.

That night he was going to go down to the dungeons and free a handful of Resistance members that Wyatt's Trackers had brought in. He was going to smuggle them out with the mortal guards that were switching shifts and have them sent to a safe house and then to a rendezvous point that not even Chris knew of – the Resistance, despite his thousands of times of proving himself as loyal to humanity and the pursuit of Good against Evil, very few trusted him to stand head on against Wyatt.

It was funny, Wyatt's words from so long ago (it seemed to be a millennium since he had committed patricide and pledged himself to Wyatt), of how it was one thing to stand by his side and standing against them, and now the Resistance says the same. Paige, hardened by war, her husband's death and the death and betrayal of her children, staring him in the eye, asking again and again if he was willing to choose the greater good over his brother. He could hear her speaking in that half-dead voice, "It is one thing, Lord Christopher, to stand with your family and play both sides because your family is divided. It is another thing to choose. Stand with both of us, but not against either of us is one thing. If you were to choose a side, you would have to stand against the other." (_"There is a difference between standing with me and standing against them," _Wyatt whispered to him internally.)

He had nodded and they had deposited him at a safe house and he had moved back home to a frantic Wyatt, calmly torturing the spoils of the latest battle against the Resistance, because he had went to battle, his brother at his side and had come home to realise that Chris was missing – a prisoner of war, perhaps? A bargaining chip? He had feared the worse and had seemed to have honestly expected to have received his brother's head, hand or ear, when Chris came walking in, a bit bruised, a bit roughed up, and with rope burns. There were handprints on his throat, burns across his chest, lacerations across his bath and he had broken and dislocated thumbs. One of the Phoenix assassins had grinned at him and said cheekily after hearing him bite through the gag when she dislocated his thumb like Wyatt had done thousands of times, "You officially slipped your cuffs and escaped."

That was his story to Wyatt and he was sticking to it.

Wyatt incinerated the captured Resistance members – burning hot, frantic and as emotional as a PMSing teenage girl. Chris had stared at him as he babbled worriedly, hovered, healed him up and clung for the next week and a half, constantly treating Chris like a porcelain doll. He had seen Chris and immediately reacted with rage, and then denial at what Chris had told him, and then at pleading with Chris to never leave the house again (that was when the wards went up) and then clinging horribly. He had also tried to follow Chris to the bathroom a few times in that week after the Resistance had captured him and Chris, practically suffocated by Wyatt, had said, "Trust me, Wyatt, there aren't any traitors in the toilet, or hiding behind the shower curtain – I promise." Finally, when Wyatt had reached the acceptance stage, Chris had already considered taking an athame and putting it in some of Wyatt's favourite toys, preferably Zoras, to make him mad and snap out of it.

When Wyatt had "sparred" with him again, Chris' arm broke, but you wouldn't believe from the way he smiled in relief before he iced it and Wyatt healed it.

…

"You've honestly got to stop following me," Chris said as he opened up a chest and scavenged some shtriga clothing so he could infiltrate their eastern cousins next, "You're not even good at it. If you wanted to catch me unawares, you might as well hire a Phoenix or something to track me, not follow me yourself." Leo came out from behind a pillar and Chris scoffed at his clothes, "Honestly, it isn't fair that you have that much luck. Coming down here in white? You're asking to be vanquished. You're not even trying to blend in."

Leo glared at him and said, "I'm infiltrating with you."

"Nope," Chris said.

"And why not?"

"Do you know Eredun?" Chris asked, raising his eyebrows as he pulled a pelt over his black shirt.

"Eredun?"

Chris rolled his eyes, "Ol Sha'tar kirel nruk oiad bvtmoni gamygyn."

Leo frowned and said, "That's not a language."

"It's not Enochian, you mean, and it isn't a mortal tongue, either," Chris replied, "I wouldn't expect you to know it."

"What is it?"

Chris glared at him, "It's a demonic tongue. There are about fourteen of them, and that is the only one I am vaguely proficient at."

"How do you know a demon tongue?"

"I was an ambassador for Wyatt's Court, remember? I told you that the last time you tried to get me killed down here by walking around like a giant target for ambush. I had to go and buy us a treaty with the schritinites," he made a motion to the pelts on his body, "And that is what I'm doing right now."

"You're allying with demons?" Leo asked harshly.

"No, I'm sitting down to tea and discussing how to take over the world," Chris jabbed, "You osknobg, do you think I'm stupid? I'm taking allies where I can find them. They hated Wyatt where I'm from, and they'll hate him now. They'd want to keep him as good as possible as to keep him from them. If that fails, they'll have information at the very least."

"What information are you looking for?"

"None you can find," he declared, "Now, I have to orb over to Mongolia. Watch the sisters, protect Wyatt, and don't bother Piper too bad. She's had a bad day," and with that, he was gone.

"What do you mean Piper had a bad day?"

…

That night, the night of Chris' eighteenth birthday, when Wyatt curled around Chris in his sleep, and wrapped his arms tightly around his waist, Chris was thankful that Wyatt was a pathetically deep sleeper. He laid a note on the pillow, writing simply, and feeling his self-loathing spike and die as he wrestled with what to put, before scrawling a handful of lies and charming the handwriting, watching his scratchy scrawl morph into curly lettering. He pulled out the masking potion for his orbs and wiped a few drops along the edges so the scent would change and the trackers and lycanthropes wouldn't come for him. Finally he went to the door of their suite, gave a look at the purple walls ("It feels regal!"), at the pictures of their family everywhere, ("They're family, Chris, I'm not ashamed of them."), at the family scrying crystal, maps, atlases and globe ("What if they are calling me and they are behind wards?"), at the Book of Shadows locked up behind an aged portrait of Melinda Warren on the wall ("It may be useless, but it's ours, and it belongs with us"), and finally at the chandelier and table copied from the ones at the manor (Wyatt's drunken slur, "I miss them so much…").

He felt his soul rise up and sit in his throat

What should he have written?

"_I love you." _A sociopath caring that someone under his control loving him? Yeah, right. "_It'll be okay._" Wyatt wasn't used to insubordination. Traitors usually attempted to kill him not sabotage him or steal his punching bags. In fact, since his favourite possession was Chris, it most certainly would not be okay, not for Wyatt. Besides, Wyatt, if he was able at some point, loved Chris in his own twisted, possessive way and would literally tear the world apart looking for him.

Chris thought of that Phoenix assassin, the one who happily broke his fingers and dislocated his thumb, the one who seemed vaguely familiar, and wrote with a flourish, "Took our people back. If you ever want to see Lord Christopher again, you will not look for him or for the people we took. We are not afraid to kill or permanently maim him in order to keep you away from us – Phoenix Rising."

The Resistance, when leaving messages, would sign it with P. R. Chris had mused it meant Public Rescue, or Public Resistance, or People's Rescue or Resistance, etc. He thought of that Phoenix again, at how firm she stood, at how sure of herself she was and signed it for her. "Phoenix Rising." Like Good rising from the ashes of where Wyatt had burned it all away. Chris, too, felt immortal like the witch clan, like the Greek mythical bird that had blessed such a tribe of wise women. For the first time in four years, he felt alive. He clutched the amulet, gave his brother a parting glance as his face scrunched and he hugged Chris' pillow closer to him, seemingly aware of his brother's absence from his clinging arms. A child, Chris remarked tiredly, a child that hit when he didn't get what he wanted, who clung tighter, who broke his toys and saw people as inferior, who clung to Chris like a baby his security blanket, never more, never less.

Chris opened the door and walked out. As he walked, his long black hair changed suddenly, his glamour falling, as he felt his dark brown hair shorten. He felt his hard green eyes darken slightly and soften around the edges. He felt his shoulders square and wondered how he could be so sure of himself, when he felt like he was on the edge of a glacier and slipping into the arctic water. He felt like ice sheets, about to crack into thousands of little pieces and melt away. He thought of dumpy little penguins and yellow polar bears, and of his brother, so young, crawling in bed with his little brother because "I have to protect you from the nightmares!" and how he had tiredly responded so long ago, "Are you sure you aren't the one with nightmares?"

"My only nightmare is you leaving me all alone," Wyatt had replied with all the bluntness his ten-year-old self could muster, and Chris had let him crawl in. What eight year old wouldn't? _Sometimes, dreams do come true_, Chris mused, _and some dreams are nightmares._

"Au revoir, Wyatt," he whispered to the silence as he made his way downstairs into the depths, and through the portal that lead to the Underworld prison. He went to the dungeons, opened all the doors, made all the prisoners clasp hands and orbed them to the safe house.

_Et tu, Chris?_

Even then, they were speaking two different languages.

Chapter End.


	7. Reflections and Ruses

**Disclaimer: No rights to _Charmed._ **

**Author's Notes: Yeah, I haven't updated in three days and I feel terrible, but what can you do? I'm participating in an unofficial writing competition where I have to write thousands of words in twelve stories in twelve different genres but I am explicitly not allowed to do fanfiction as either a story or as a genre - which sucks because a little plot bunny bounded into my head holding a thesaurus bookmarked on _Pococurante _and this is what the plot bunny gave me. **

**For the word defined below, if you need a reference, I referred to Lord Wyatt as being "concupiscent," whereas Lord Christopher had a "pococurante" disposition. Also, the phrases Chris says in Eredun don't matter even though I could define them. The other language is not the point of the story and since we are in shifting limited third person, I do not translate the phrases, because Chris only says them when we are following Leo and his thoughts. Leo does not know Eredun, he does not wish to and I will not translate the phrases in the story. If you ask in a review or PM, however, I will reply with the translations if you desperately need them or want to know them. **

**I was asked about why I characterised Leo as a homophobic individual. Leo is homophobic because A. Leo was born in 1924, B. you would not believe the amount of really good people that irrationally hate other people over really silly things. I'm not saying Leo is a horrible person, I'm saying he was raised with the irrational beliefs of the past and we never really saw that explored on the show. My grandparents, I love them, I do, but you would not believe my liberal, atheist, queer-ally self came from those nice, but bigoted, hateful people. You would not believe the amount of nice people that can still generate so much hate. Leo has had enough female charges to recognise that women are just as, if not more, capable than men. Leo has been around coloured whitelighters and witches, I assume, long enough to recognise that colour does not define the morality or ability of people. Leo _has not _been around openly LGBTQQIAA people, thus he still harbours some innate disgust from his upbringing. I'm saying that A. Leo is from the twenties, B. people can still be raised irrationally _now_ and spout the craziest of things while still being kind and intelligent, C. people are inherently flawed and can sometimes behave irrationally or cruelly to one another. P****lus, ****I have never written a homophobic character and I wanted to try and believably write someone I don't agree with. I wanted to diversify my writing style. I'm not saying Leo is evil. I'm not saying he's stupid. I'm saying he, like everyone else, is a product of his upbringing. His upbringing did not include the inherent acceptance of everyone else as they are. He is a really nice character, but that doesn't mean he treats people fairly or kindly if they are different from him in "key" ways. **

**Warnings: Leo's homophobia, language, references to violence, conspiracy, breakdowns, OOC, etc.**

**Chapter 6: Reflections and Ruses.**

Concupiscence

(Noun).

Strong, usually sexual, desire; intense passion; (IN CATHOLICISM) the unruly desires of the will such as pride, ambition and envy; the evil desire indwelling sin.

* * *

"Kas shemael oomiene," Chris thanked them and the demonic sprites shimmered away. He gave a wry smile to the air and lifted a brow as he called, "You can come out now," Leo orbed in front of him and Chris rolled his eyes, saying derisively, "You're lucky those were only sprites. Anyone more powerful and the both of us would be dead."

"What did you say to them?"

"Why can't you just trust me?" Chris asked helplessly.

Leo glared at him stonily, silent.

Chris shrugged, "I greeted them and after they told me their information I thanked them for their time and they left. That's it. They trust you way more and are way more open about what they know if they think you're one of them, especially if you speak the same language as them. It's the same with humans – you live in Germany and start speaking German, they probably won't guess you aren't German unless you have a shitty accent. Same with demons."

"And why don't you have an accent, _Krynik_?" Leo replied, practically vomiting acid.

Chris rolled his eyes, "I've been speaking Eredun since I was at least," Leo supplied mentally ages varying from birth to five years of age and raised a suspicious brow as Chris finished his statement with a shrug-accented, "fourteen. At most, I was fifteen, give or take a few months."

"Who taught you?" Leo asked suspiciously and added in quickly, "And yes, if it pleases you, this is an impromptu interrogation."

Chris shrugged, "A bunch of demons participated. A phrase here, a word there – you pick things up when you work with the Underworld's finest on a daily basis. Javid and I, I guess, were able to get a few edge-wise demons to give us lessons, and eventually Wyatt ordered Zoras to teach us." His mouth curled around the demon's name in an angry grimace.

Leo crossed his arms, "I thought Zoras killed your mother."

"He did," Chris nodded, "Wyatt played with Zoras for three months before breaking him into a little lapdog that did as he was told. Zoras couldn't even torture anyone after that," he gave a bitter smile, "It would have been kinder to kill him. It was only a year or so after I left that Zoras was able to do more than provide information and teach Eredun. He was too volatile for ambassadorial work and he was too broken to torture information from the Rebels, but he was too powerful to be exposed to the front lines, too. If he went to battle and the Resistance took him? He'd have turned at the drop of a hat and exposed thousands of our secrets. He was too broken not to."

Leo didn't believe him, but he couldn't call him out on it, "So why was Zoras attacking Piper in the past?"

Chris shrugged, crossing his arms, "I honestly don't know. To hazard a guess, Wyatt sent him on a suicide mission to see whether or not I had been erased from history. The one who attacked Piper seemed a bit out of the loop. When I left for the past to save Paige from the Titans, everyone seemed to generally know I had turned on Lord Wyatt, except for him."

"And why is that? Why didn't Wyatt know you were a turncoat?"

Chris gave a long-suffering sigh, "He probably couldn't accept that I, of all people, was the one to betray him."

"And why was that?" Leo replied, struggling to keep the inherent disbelief from his voice. Chris was obviously lying; he was obviously hiding something. Besides, if Chris was willing to be questioned, that meant he was prepared for such a questioning and had prepared every answer to every possible question, which called any statement of his into question for accuracy and viability.

"Because 'why would Lord Christopher betray Lord Wyatt?' was on the tip of the tongue of every enemy of Wyatt, on every Resistance leader, even on Paige's lips, rest her soul," Chris replied.

Leo visibly flinched back, hearing 'Lord Christopher' and 'Lord Wyatt' bounce around in his skull and raise several horrifying pictures of his son kissing another man, ruling alongside another man, relying on another man at his back, in his bed, next to him every day and every night. Then he realised – Chris had ruled alongside Wyatt? _Chris had been an evil overlord like Wyatt!_ _Not just a vapid, brain-washed follower, a _leader_! _Leo was right! Chris was Evil, and he had twisted Wyatt and damned him.

Chris had continued speaking, face reddening as frost climbed up the walls and the stalactites of the ceiling cracked, "Melinda wasn't titled – everyone could expect her to betray her brother. Even Kat, Pam or Parker were expected. They weren't titled, they were just lowly generals. Why would I, of all people, betray Wyatt? What could I possibly gain by leaving his side, of leaving his so-called utopia? I'll tell you what I gained, Leo, I'll tell you. I gained freedom – permanent, never-ending freedom. I could take off the masks, I could be myself, I didn't have to censor myself or play a part, I didn't have to look in the mirror and wonder who was looking back, I was finally _free_. People looked at Wyatt and me and were jealous – after all, we had it better than everyone else. We had a mansion, mortals fawning over us, enough food to eat, demons at our beck and call, and absolute power. People didn't know how I could hear the prisoners screaming all night, how you had to smile at your friends and then wonder which one would knife you in the night. People didn't know how you'd get so close to some people and then Wyatt would kill them to keep you in line – he'd do it on purpose! Hey, Chris? I saw you having tea for over an hour with that nice Valkyrie I assigned to protect you. Oh? Anna? My tea was poisoned today, but thankfully Valkyrie Anna was there to test it for me, otherwise you'd have to bury me instead of her – she was just another Valkyrie, Christopher, don't get so upset!" The last word was punctuated by a rather large stalactite falling and crumbling into thousands of pieces next to him and Chris didn't even flinch.

Chris nodded, staring into Leo's blue eyes, so much purer than Wyatt's hazel pair, "So I left Wyatt. I let him think I was dead. I let him tear the world apart. I let him fall into darkness. I let that happen – we all did, and now this is only way I can fix that, this is the only way I can repent for the things I've done. I let so many people die, I let so many people suffer – I killed people, I tortured people, I did thousands of things I will never be proud of, and if I can save Wyatt, if I can stop him from taking the world, then none of that will have happened. You can follow me all you want, you can threaten me, you can distrust me, you can call me vile and disgusting and thousands of horrible names! You think I haven't been hated before? I have! By millions, and I'm okay with that, I understand that, but you keep trying to impede my mission, and for what? Because you hate me? Because you don't trust me? Because I apparently ruined your marriage? Well, I'm sorry, Leo. I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry for not being good enough for you, for not being strong enough to stand against Wyatt immediately, I'm sorry for splitting in half when everyone I loved turned against each other! I'm sorry I killed you! I'm sorry for everything.

"You can act all high and mighty, if you want. If you want to keep hanging onto the fact I sent you to Valhalla, if you want to hate me for my entire life, if you want me to die – that's all okay, that's understandable, I get that. But can't we," Chris stopped suddenly feeling a horrific heat across his cheek and he reddened as it froze on his face, and felt hysteria rise in him, "can't we get along long enough to save everyone else? We both love Wyatt, so why can't we just save him and go from there? Why can't you just trust me for once in your fucking life – for Wyatt's sake?"

And with that, Chris disappeared in a thousand of blue and white lights.

Leo was left staring after him, before completely disregarding all of what Chris just asked him. _You want me to play nice for Wyatt? Not a chance, lying warlock. That's my son at stake – you aren't family. You aren't anything but a nasty, evil, gay, home wrecking liar._

…

Piper was approximately three months pregnant and was reading some trashy romance novel as Wyatt slept when Chris suddenly orbed in front of her. He was facing away from her and didn't seem to notice her presence as he approached the crib and stared at Wyatt. She saw his hand go up to his face and she heard a sound that she might identify as a sniffle on anyone else, but as this was Chris and he was generally only a three-setting man with those settings being apathetic, annoyed and/or pissed. A sniffle did not appropriate any other setting and she was not Phoebe and was not able to identify what exactly she had just heard.

She might have asked him if this wasn't an opportunity to observe Chris when he believed he was alone.

"It's the anniversary, Wy," Chris whispered softly.

She blinked and was practically biting off her tongue so she didn't ruin the observation. Romance novels? This was real drama. Her son and his beau? Their anniversary, perhaps?

"You wouldn't care," Chris murmured, "You'd call me pathetic and to get over myself," he made his tone honeying and slightly huskier because he was whispering and you can't get much higher and remain quiet, "you'd say, 'Pardon me, Christopher, but when did you turn into such a female? Honestly, you are showing weakness and it makes us both look horrible. Get over yourself.'"

Chris nodded at the sleeping baby, "Everything happened on this day, Wy. Our official rise to power, the day I left you, Melinda's death – it all happened today. What is it about this day, Wy? Why is it cursed for us? I'd bet you'd say something like 'Well, Christopher, it's your fate, it's my fate, it's our destiny,' and I'd give you a derisive look and say, 'You know I don't believe in fate or destiny,'" He paused when baby Wyatt snuffled and turned over and his voice grew softer, "Mel _died _today, Wy, and I can't do anything. Leo is following me around and never trusts me even though he said he did. He's trying to get us both killed and if Leo dies now, what'll happen to us? Huh? What good is it to follow me around when I'm trying to save you?

"Our Leo would have known better. Everyone in the past is so different – well, Paige is the same if she's a bit young. I guess we both know who Kat and Tammy got their looks from, eh? And Phoebe? She's so out there! It's amazing to think that our Phoebe used to be like that – all over the place, boy crazy, writing an advice column. And Mom? I see her every day and it's getting so hard to differentiate my mom and this…. Piper is so strong and confident and she bullied Leo into staying around here somehow – if only she could do that where we came from, eh? Maybe we would have ended up some place different and I wouldn't have killed him for you," Chris chuckled softly and Piper thought to herself that this situation was so surreal as Chris continued to have this one-sided conversation with his future lover, "Piper was probably always that strong and Leo just devolved into some…."

Chris paused, straightening his shoulders and then she heard a tone she'd never had before from Chris: cooing. He cooed, "Hey, Wy? Did mean Chris accidentally wake you up? Chris is sorry, I promise." He reached down and Piper's eyes widened, because there was no way to hide the fact she was watching them interact. She was practically eavesdropping on a private moment between them! He picked up the little blond with a grin and Wyatt looked over his shoulder as Chris bounced him on his hip. Wyatt smiled slightly and whispered, "Ma."

"Ma?" Chris remarked with a grin clearly in his voice, "I bet I can go find her for you, but she might yell at me for waking up the baby. That wouldn't have changed – I just wanted to see what Mel looked like without all the swaddling, and she never let me live it down, I swear – " he turned and saw Piper sitting there in the rocking chair. His grin died in its tracks and he lowered Wyatt to the floor, setting him on his tiny feet and he asked quietly, "How long have you been sitting there?"

She pushed herself to her feet, and said calmly, "Since you orbed in," and she gave him a smile and said, "I take it I won't get to know who Mel is?"

Chris gave her a deer-in-headlights look and orbed away. Wyatt looked at the ceiling and then at his mother, "Ma?"

"Yeah, Wyatt?"

"Kwis?" he asked, pointing at the ceiling.

"Yeah, mean Mommy accidently made Chris leave."

"Kwis?" he persisted, "Kwis? Kwis?"

Piper rolled her eyes and called to the ceiling, "Chris, Wyatt wants you. I know you can hear me so don't make a baby sad after you woke him up from his nap!"

With that, she walked out of the room and Wyatt flumped down on his bum. Still calling at the ceiling, he picked up his blue car and holding it up at the ceiling, "Kwis? Kwis cah?"

She heard the tell-tale orbing and smiled to herself as she walked away.

…

"This will make the secrets come out?" he asked again, gesturing to the potion stewing, "This will rip all the secrets from him?"

"Yes," the crone replied, hissing, "Your whitelighter halfbreed will have secrets no more."

"And will that give me what I seek?" Leo asked, "That will make him leave this time and leave my son alone both now and in the future? This will destroy their relationship?"

The crone cackled and said haggardly, stirring with vicious movements of her crooked and gnarled wrists, "This will give you the truth you seek and has the most chance of destroying him eternally. If this does not force him away, nothing but death will."

And with that, Leo smiled softly, feeling relief for the first time in months.

…

"Chris, so help me, you will eat dinner with us!" Piper shouted.

"I am in the middle of a very precarious investigation into the dealing of the – "

She blew up the vase next to him and he glared at her. She raised her hands warningly and said, "If you have enough time to spend three hours playing with Wyatt and cleaning the attic you _so _have enough time to eat one measly meal with us."

He sighed harshly and shrugged, "One meal, we wine and dine and I leave, you got me?"

"I got you," she snarled, "I got you so badly I'm going to," she closed her mouth and gave a muffled screaming sound.

He gave her a half-hearted glare and asked quietly, "Do you need help cooking?"

"Do I ever need help cooking?!" she shouted at him, walking out.

Phoebe walked in though the other entrance and whispered, "Don't be too hard on her – the baby is making her hormonal."

Chris nodded, crossed his arms and sat down with a heavy sigh. Phoebe sat across from him and gave him an expectant smile. He raised a brow at her and his leg started jittering. She waited a solid moment in silence before breaking it, "So…."

He looked up at her, propped an elbow on his knee and put his head in his upraised hand and replied, imitating her, "So…?"

"Do I marry Jason?" she broke out.

"You know very well that I can't tell you whether or not you did."

She frowned and pouted, "When we travelled back in time to save baby Melinda Warren…."

He raised his brow again and said, "Is this about the apple peel forming a 'C' as the first letter of the man you would marry?"

"It was the first letter of my true love," she corrected him and then she blinked, "How did you know that?"

He rolled his eyes, "What part of 'you guys are in history books' do you not understand? Plus, Paige told me all of your stories. I know everything about you guys – another reason why I was the prime time-traveller to come back."

"Paige wasn't around for that story," Phoebe protested, "That was before, when Prue was here."

"I know," he nodded, "Paige ended up the resident witchery expert whereas you became Super Mom and Piper became a chef. Paige ended up teaching – "

"Yeah, she ends up teaching at Magic School," Phoebe grinned, "I knew that."

"You did?" he asked dumbly, raised eyebrows and widened green eyes.

She nodded happily, "Just like I knew I'd be pregnant when Piper's sons were kids, maybe when the younger one was five or six and Wyatt was seven or eight."

Chris nodded, "That sounds right."

She waited patiently before breaking again, "That's all I get?"

He blinked at her curiously.

"You tell Paige about her kids and her husband, you tell Piper about Wyatt – why don't I get more about my family?"

He flushed, and replied defensively, "Sorry, Phoebe, if you were meant to know about the future, you'd have a vision about it."

She keened and pouted, "Please? Can't I get their names or something?"

Piper called from the kitchen, "Dinner's ready!"

Chris stood and said finally, biting back so many horrible words he could have said to her, before resting on an acidic, "No, you don't marry Jason."

And with that, he stalked his way to the table.

…

"I just have to dip a mirror in the potion and break it on the floor at Chris' feet, and that should reveal his secrets and make him leave?"

The crone cackled and said, "Yes, wise one, your halfbreed will flee if he does not have a heart of pure ice and stone. There is no way my spells can fail."

"Thank you," he grinned at her and she handed him the large powder horn that sloshed with the heavy sludge. Leo took the leather strap willingly and gave her a grateful smile, "Thank you so much, Kate. You have no idea how much good this will do."

She gave him a toothy grin and revealed the rotten mess of her mouth, the black and yellow repugnant marbles of her grimace that might have been teeth once. She left her gnarled arm outstretched, fingers curved horrifically this way and that with age and arthritis and she crooked her finger bones eagerly as he handed her the sack of foetal hearts and the jug of virgin's blood. She grinned at him and nodded, "Come again!"

And with that, the wayward Elder disappeared in orbs, cradled the ancient powder horn to his chest, as if it was the answer to all of his prayers.

Behind a cavern wall, a tall figure in all black, a dark trenchcoat and trousers outfit to be specific, stepped out and came up behind the hunched-backed crone. His slicked back black hair and goatee remained unchanged around his curved smirk. He raised an athame and brandished it lightly, caressing its handle like most would a lover, and said, "Is it done?"

The crone did not respond. He grinned. She bent to set down the leather sack and plastic jug. She fluffed her robe collar, ran a gnarled hand through white tangled hair and sighed loudly.

He went to raise the blade against her and she replied quietly, "I gave him what he desired."

"And what was his desire?"

"To see the truth," she replied simply, running a haggard hand along the edge of the pewter cauldron, her blind, milky blue left eye and fading brown right eye roving over her jarred eyes and pickled specimens, over a simple veiled photograph of her daughter, the Mother, and her granddaughter, the Maiden. She was the Crone of their coven, and yet she was the only one left, and she would take the family secrets to her grave. This demon wanted to play? He wanted her to set traps? To leave the Twice-Blessed Childe defenceless to evil?

This demon knew nothing. She had seen the waves of time, she had walked alongside Neena, and the All, and she had balanced the Graeae and the Fates, she had seen Medusa and blessed Cassandra, she had spoken with the mortal who called himself Mercury and fancied himself a god, and she had spoken with the mortal who called himself Jupiter and fancied himself the supreme being. She had met true Angels not just whitelighters that liked to think that orbing had anything on real wings. She had met true Evil. She had blessed Sources, both of Evil and of Good. She had given birth to a woman called Mother by Wiccans, and the Mother gave birth to a child called Maiden by the believers. She wore black, the Mother red, and the Maiden white. She mourned then for the future and for what she could not foresee.

She mourned for the Valkyrie who trained their warriors, for the mortal who fancied himself to be Thor considering his end at the hands of the mortal who fancied himself Loki, for the chariots that pretended to burn in the sky, for the believers and for the atheists, for the little blond boy who thought he could reign supreme, and for the quiet attentive sibling that trotted along at his side, for the other universes, for the other futures, and the thought of a story she used to tell the Mother back when she could have been called Maiden. She had told her of a prophecy of a nameless, faceless child who could bypass fate and mould time and space at will if he would only try.

"Nameless and faceless?" the child Mother had remarked tiredly, before the younger Crone had put her to bed, "How does the child survive?"

"By sheer force of will and a bucket full of luck."

"Then the fortuned Tyche should not reward him or her such. Why should a child be blessed with luck but no face?"

"Because if such a child were to have a face, that would mean they would be seen and thus they would be stopped. Besides, you know well that not all luck is good and that wishing someone Tyche's tender touches is not a kindly fate. The child's true gift is deception – not even a mirror could truly reveal his or her secrets. Now sleep, young Selene, or you'll never be awake to meet your fate either."

"But Hekate," she protested tiredly, yawning.

The Crone shook her head, "Sleep, childe, and one day you will be rewarded with a great strength and strong children."

"Why must I have children?"

"Because that is your fate, Selene," the Crone whispered to her sleeping face, "You are bound to be a Mother and I am bound to be a Crone, and one day, your child will be the Maiden. There is power and stability in threes, childe, and I promise you, that no stability will change because of this. We will grow strong and wax with our power, and we will revitalise the world time and time again, for both men and women."

And now, the Mother and the Maiden were long since dust on the wind, and she too would join them. And Hekate joined her daughter and her granddaughter shortly soon after. The nameless child had come and her visions clouded, but she realised finally, that the Fates were probably dead too.

She felt an intense burning at the base of her spine and she suddenly asked mentally of the nameless child, though she was screaming too much to form words aloud:

_Were you the one to kill my daughter, Master Nameless? Or was that the mortals, too?_

…

They were sitting down to eat dinner and it was lasagne – which was one of Chris' favourite foods before Wyatt's takeover. After Wyatt's takeover, when he finally joined the rebels completely, he rather enjoyed canned clam chowder. There was nothing else like it and it was very rare to find an edible one. Piper was giving him a hopeful look, Phoebe looked disturbed over what he told her, and Paige was Paige.

He took a bite and felt bile at the back of his throat – or was that just the bitter surge of grief, rough and unfettered, that was bleeding within him? No, he probably just felt sick. For some reason. It wasn't as if he was perpetually freezing or anything and _couldn't_ get a simple influenza by trailing around the very cold, completely sanitised depths of the Underworld. After he felt the bile recede, he could taste the spices, at the perfect proportioning of the cheese, pasta and sauce, at the organic tomatoes and mozzarella.

It tasted like tears and the horrible acidity of hope.

It was disgusting.

It was wonderful.

"Chris?" Piper asked quietly, her face falling from its hopeful smile to worry.

He raised a shaking hand to his eyes and was surprised to find it was raining inside somehow and he was the only one to have the raindrops on his face, "It's very good, Piper," he told her stiltedly, "Please excuse me."

He stood and quickly made it upstairs to the bathroom. He closed the door, locked it and warded it quietly before pressing his back to the door and sliding down to the floor. Wyatt would have hit him if he had done that at dinner. Of course, Wyatt knew better than to order the servants to make lasagne and serve it at his Halliwell-imitated table under that Halliwell-imitated chandelier. Here he was, in the past, crying like a fucking child because of some pasta and a reunited family. There was the china, the silver, the white tablecloth, and he remembered Wyatt sitting at the head of the not-Halliwell table and pointing to chairs, recounting names and stories, and tossing back drink after drink and recounting how he killed him or her, or how she or he died, or how Chris had done so and so to him or her.

"Oh Wyatt," he whispered, seconds after he felt the tears stop and his lids start to burn and crust with the remaining excess of the salty liquid, "Why am I doing this? What for? I'm not closer to saving you than to saving Mom. I wish…." He trailed off uneasily, feeling a chill trill down his spine and a shudder overtake his shoulders and without his command, his latent _evil _power leeched out and the door started to ice over behind him. He stood slightly and peered in the mirror that was quickly frosting over. He stared into his bright green eyes and the red lids and bloodshot sclera and he whispered quietly, "What's going on? What's happened?"

He telekinetically unlocked and swung open the bathroom door and peered into the hallway. He reached out with his whitelighter half and searched for Wyatt first and foremost. He was still at the table downstairs. He searched out for Piper and Phoebe and Paige and all were at the table. Begrudgingly, he searched for Leo, since he was a blood family member and family members could feel each other.

…Where was Leo? Whitelighters couldn't sense a charge – or a family member – if they were A. dead or B. in the Underworld. What was an Elder doing in the Underworld? Was Leo the rumoured Elder making deals about Wyatt? That didn't make sense – as much as he despised Chris and ignored Melinda growing up, he had doted on Wyatt. He would never search for ways to kill Wyatt.

Or was he trying to kill Chris?

Or were there two Elders in the Underworld, making connections and paying for poisons? Making waves in the Darker half of Magic? Trying to tip the scales?

All of those theories seemed farfetched, but he felt the dread curling in his stomach and he immediately orbed down to Wyatt's side. He picked him up and pulled him from the chair. Piper stood and said something, but he was ignoring her. Phoebe shouted something at him and Paige was staring at him in surprise. He raised a finger and shushed them, eyes wide and blazing, ears listening as hard as he could for the telltale witch hunters or Wyatt's White Warriors, or even other Rebels. He listened for the whirl of the attic portal and for the screeching of the Nexus.

He searched for Leo.

Leo had found them. He was standing before him and he was holding a mirror clutched to his chest. He was saying something but all Chris could hear was the blood rushing in his ears and turned, arms tight around Wyatt and went to escape – but from what? – and he heard the horrifying whoosh and then thousands of icicles shattering against the hardwood of Halliwell Manor.

Or was that the glass iced methane sheen of the mirror shattering at his feet?

He looked back wildly as thousands of coalescing colours, the seven of the human's visible spectrum, and seventeen more that did not exist on Earth, all coming together and swallowing them all whole. He clutched Wyatt, and the future, tightly and felt the blessed black/white/grey of unconsciousness take him into the deeps. He could hear Piper screaming, Phoebe shouting, Paige cursing, Leo calling out, and Wyatt cry. He heard himself roaring for Wyatt. He felt Wyatt clutch him close, tiny pudgy arms tight around him, bowlegs curled around his hips, fat child fingers tight in his hair, short blond locks hitting his face, and he felt the innate fear of the child leech into him and they were lost.

…

An ornate mirror is perched on the table and a demon shimmered in. He searched the house for an abandoned Twice-Blessed Childe, but did not find him. He turned back to the mirror, looked at it in confusion briefly and cursed as he realised the crone Hekate had tricked them all. The Twice-Blessed Childe was missing, the Charmed Ones had vanished, an Elder had fell off the face of the Earth, and Lord Christopher had long since disappeared. And Hekate was dead.

Chapter End.


End file.
